
Book 1__ 



u 



' ' 






v 






ANECDOTES 



OP 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. 



/ 



ANECDOTES 



OF 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 



DURING THE UkST 



TWENTY YEARS OP HIS LIFE. 



*Y 



HESTHER LYNCH PIOZZI. 



A NEW EDITION, 










LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR T. AND J. ALLMAN, 
GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. 

1826. 



Printed by T. C. Ncvtby, Angel-Hill, Bury. 



PREFACE. 



I have somewhere heard or read, that the 
preface before a book, like the portico before 
a house, should be contrived, so as to catch, 
but not detain, the attention of those who 
desire admission to the family within, or leave 
to look over the collection of pictures, made 
by one whose opportunities of obtaining them 
we know to have been not unfrequent. I wish 
not to keep my readers long from such inti- 
macy with the manners of Dr. Johnson, or 
such knowledge of his sentiments as these 
pages can convey. To urge my distance from 
England as an excuse for the book's being ill 
written, would be ridiculous; it might indeed 
serve as a just reason for my having written 
it at all; because, though others may print 
the same aphorisms and stories, I cannot here 



VI 



be sure that they have done so. As the Duke 
says, however, to the Weaver, in A Midsum- 
mer Night's Dream, " Never excuse ; if your 
play be a bad one, keep at least the excuses 
to yourself/' 

I am aware that many will say, I have not 
spoken highly enough of Dr. Johnson ; but it 
will be difficult for those who say so, to speak 
more highly. If I have described his man* 
ners as they were, I have been careful to shew 
his superiority to the common forms of com- 
mon life. It is surely no dispraise to an oak 
that it does not bear jessamine ; and he who 
should plant honeysuckle round Trajan's co- 
lumn, would not be thought to adorn, but to 
disgrace it. 

When I have said, that he was more a man 
of genius than of learning, I mean not to take 
from the one part of his character that which 
I willingly give to the other. The erudition 
of Mr. Johnson proved his genius ; for he 
had not acquired it by long or profound stu- 
dy ; nor can I think those characters the 



Vll 



greatest which have most learning driven in- 
to their heads, any more than I can persuade 
myself to consider the river Jenisca as supe- 
rior to the Nile, because the first receives 
near seventy tributary streams in the course 
of its unmarked progress to the sea, while the 
great parent of African plenty, flowing from 
an almost invisible source, and unenriched 
by any extraneous waters, except eleven 
nameless rivers, pours his majestic torrent 
into the ocean by seven celebrated mouths. 
But I must conclude my Preface, and be- 
t gin my book, the first I ever presented before 
the public ; from whose awful appearance in 
some measure to defend and conceal myself, 
I have thought fit to retire behind the Tela- 
monian shield, and shew as little of myself as 
possible ; well aware of the exceeding differ- 
ence there is, between fencing in the school, 
and fighting in the field. Studious, how- 
ever, to avoid offending, and careless of that 
offence which can be taken without a cause, 
I here not unwillingly submit my slight per- 



vm 



formance to the decision of that glorious 
country, which I have the daily delight to 
hear applauded in others, as eminently just, 
generous, and humane. 



ANECDOTES. 



Too much intelligence is often as pernicious 
to biography as too little; the mind remains 
perplexed by contradiction of probabilities, 
and finds difficulty in separating report from 
truth. If Johnson then lamented that so little 
had ever been said about Butler, I might with 
more reason be led to complain that so much 
has been said about himself; for numberless 
informers but distract or cloud information, as 
glasses which multiply will for the most part 
be found also to obscure. Of a life, too, which 
for the last twenty years was passed in the very 
front of literature, every leader of a literary 
company, whether officer or subaltern, natur- 
ally becomes either author or critic, so that lit- 
tle less than the recollection that it was once the 
request of the deceased, and twice the desire of 
those whose will I ever delighted to comply 
with, should have engaged me to add my little 

B 



2 ANECDOTES OF 

book to the number of those already written on 
the subject. I used to urge another reason for 
forbearance, and say, that all the readers would, 
on this singular occasion, be the writers of his 
life : like the first representation of the Masque 
of Comus, which by changing their characters 
from spectators to performers, was acted by 
the lords and ladies it was written to entertain. 
This objection is however now at an end, as I 
have found friends, far remote indeed from li- 
terary questions, who may yet be diverted from 
melancholy by my description of Johnson's 
manners, warmed to virtue even by the distant 
reflection of his glowing excellence, and en- 
couraged by the relation of his animated zeal 
to persist in the profession as well as practice 
of Christianity. 

Samuel Johnson was the son of Michael 
Johnson, a bookseller at Litchfield, in Staf- 
fordshire ; a very pious and worthy man, but 
wrong-headed, positive, and afflicted with me- 
lancholy, as his son, from whom alone I had 
the information, once told me : his business, 
however, leading him to be much on horseback, 
contributed to the preservation of his bodily 
health, and mental sanity; which, when he 



K 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 3 

stayed long at home, would sometimes be about 
to give way; and Mr. Johnson said, that when 
his workshop, a detached building, had fallen 
half down for want of money to repair it, his 
father was not less diligent to lock the door 
every night, though he saw that any body might 
walk in at the back part, and knew that there 
was no security obtained by barring the front 
door. " This (says his son) was madness, you 
may see, and would have been discoverable in 
other instances of the prevalence of imagination, 
but that poverty prevented it from playing such 
tricks as riches and leisure encourage." Mi- 
chael was a man of still larger size and greater 
strength than his son, who was reckoned very 
like him, but did not delight in talking much 
of his family — ft One has (says he) so little 
pleasure in reciting the anecdotes of beggary." 
One day, however, hearing me praise a favour- 
ite friend with partial tenderness as well as true 
esteem ; Why do you like that man's acquaint- 
ance so ? said he : Because, replied I, he is 
open and confiding, and tells me stories of his 
uncles and cousins ; I love the light parts of a 
solid character. " Nay, if you are for family 
history (says Mr. Johnson good-humouredly), 

b 2 



4 ANECDOTES OF 

/ can fit you : I had an uncle, Cornelius Ford, 
who, upon a journey, stopped and read an in* 
scription written on a stone he saw standing 
by the way side, set up, as it proved, in honour 
of a man who had leaped a certain leap there- 
abouts, the extent of which was specified upon 
the stone : Why now, says my uncle, I could 
leap it in my boots ; and he did leap it in his 
boots. I had likewise another uncle, Andrew 
(continued he), my father's brother, who kept 
the ring in Smithfield (where they wrestled 
and boxed) for a whole year, and never was 
thrown or conquered. Here now are uncles 
for you, mistress, if that's the way to your 
heart." Mr. Johnson was very conversant in 
the art of attack and defence by boxing, which 
science he had learned from this uncle Andrew, 
I believe ; and I have heard him descant upon 
the age when people were received, and when 
rejected, in the schools once held for that bru- 
tal amusement, much to the admiration of those 
who had no expectation of his skill in such mat- 
ters, from the sight of a figure which precluded 
all possibility of personal prowess ; though, be- 
cause he saw Mr. Thrale one day leap over a 
cabriolet stool, to shew that he was not tired 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 5 

after a chase of fifty miles or more, he suddenly- 
jumped over it too ; but in a way so strange 
and so unwieldy, that our terror, lest he should 
break his bones, took from us even the power 
of laughing. 

Michael Johnson was past fifty years old 
when he married his wife, who was upwards of 
forty ; yet I think her son told me she remain- 
ed three years childless before he was born into 
the world, who so greatly contributed to im- 
prove it. In three years more she brought an- 
other son, Nathaniel, who lived to be twenty- 
seven or twenty-eight years old, and of whose 
manly spirit I have heard his brother speak 
with pride and pleasure, mentioning one cir- 
cumstance, particular enough, that when the 
company were one day lamenting the badness 
of the roads, he inquired where they could be, 
as he travelled the country more than most 
people, and had never seen a bad road in his 
life. The two brothers did not, however, much 
delight in each other's company, being always 
rivals for the mother's fondness ; and many of 
the severe reflections on domestic life in Ras- 
selas, took their source from its author's keen 
recollections of the time passed in his early 



O ANECDOTES OF 

years. Their father Michael died of an inflam- 
matory fever, at the age of seventy- six, as Mr. 
Johnson told me : their mother at eighty-nine, 
of a gradual decay. She was slight in her per- 
son, he said, and rather below than above the 
common size. So excellent was her character, 
and so blameless her life, that when an oppres- 
sive neighbour once endeavoured to take from 
her a little field she possessed, he could per- 
suade no attorney to undertake the cause 
against a woman so beloved in her narrow cir- 
cle : and it is this incident he alludes to in the 
line of his Vanity of Human Wishes, calling her 

The general favourite as the general friend. 

Nor could any one pay more willing homage to 
such a character, though she had not been re- 
lated to him, than did Dr. Johnson on every 
occasion that offered: his disquisition on Pope's 
epitaph placed over Mrs. Corbet, is a proof of 
that preference always given by him to a noise- 
less life over a bustling one ; but however taste 
begins, we almost always see that it ends in 
simplicity ; the glutton finishes by losing his 
relish for any thing highly sauced, and calls for 
his boiled chicken at the close ot many years 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. / 

spent in the search of dainties ; the connois- 
seurs are soon weary of Rubens, and the critics 
of Luc an ; and the refinements of every kind 
heaped upon civil life, always sicken their pos- 
sessors before the close of it. 

At the age of two years Mr. Johnson was 
brought up to London by his mother, to be 
touched by queen Anne for the scrophulous 
evil, which terribly afflicted his childhood, and 
left such marks as greatly disfigured a counte- 
nance naturally harsh and rugged, beside doing 
irreparable damage to the auricular organs, 
which never could perform their functions since 
I knew him; and it was owing to that horrible 
disorder, too, that one eye was perfectly useless 
to him ; that defect, however, was not observa- 
ble, the eyes looked both alike. As Mr. John- 
son had an astonishing memory, I asked him, 
if he could remember queen Anne at all ? He 
had, he said, a confused, but somehow a sort 
of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds and 
a long black hood. 

The christening of his brother he remembe- 
red with all its circumstances, and said, his mo- 
ther taught him to spell and pronounce the 
words little Natty, syllable by syllable, making 



8 ANECDOTES OF 

him say it over in the evening to her husband 
and his guests. The trick which most parents 
play with their children, that of shewing off 
their newly-acquired accomplishments, disgus- 
ted Mr. Johnson beyond expression; he had 
been treated so himself, he said, till he abso- 
lutely loathed his father's caresses, because he 
knew they were sure to precede some unpleas- 
ing display of his early abilities ; and he used, 
when neighbours came o' visiting, to run up a 
tree that he might not be found and exhibited, 
such, as no doubt he was, a prodigy of early 
understanding. His epitaph upon the duck he 
killed by treading on it at five years old, 

Here lies poor duck 

That Samuel Johnson trod on; 
If it had liv'd it had been good luck, 

For it would have been an odd one ; 

is a striking example of early expansion of 
mind, and knowledge of language ; yet he al- 
ways seem'd more mortified at the recollection 
of the bustle his parents made with his wit, 
than pleased with the thoughts of possessing it. 
" That (said he to me one day) is the great 
misery of late marriages ; the unhappy produce 
of them becomes the plaything of dotage : an 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 9 

old man's child (continued he) leads much such 
a life, I think, as a little boy's dog, teazed with 
awkward fondness, and forced, perhaps, to sit 
up and beg, as we call it , to divert a company, 
who at last go away complaining of their dis- 
agreeable entertainment.' ' In consequence of 
these maxims, and full of indignation against 
such parents as delight to produce their young 
ones early into the talking world, I have known 
Mr. Johnson give a good deal of pain by refu- 
sing to hear the verses the children could re- 
cite, or the songs they could sing ; particularly 
one friend who told him that his two sons 
should repeat Gray's Elegy to him alternately, 
that he might judge who had the happiest ca- 
dence. " No, pray sir (said he), let the dears 
both speak it at once ; more noise will by that 
means be made, and the noise will be sooner 
over." He told me the story himself, but I 
have forgot who the father was. 

Mr. Johnson's Mother was daughter to a 
gentleman in the country, such as there were 
many of in those days, who possessing, perhaps, 
one or two hundred pounds a year in land, li- 
ved on the profits, and sought not to increase 
their income : she was therefore inclined to 






10 ANECDOTES OV 

think higher of herself than of her husband, 
whose conduct in money matters being but in- 
different, she had a trick of teasing him about 
it, and was, by her son's account, very impor- 
tunate with regard to her fears of sp ending- 
more than they could afford, though she never 
arrived at knowing how much that was ; a fault 
common, as he said, to most women who pride 
themselves on their economy. They did not 
however, as I could understand, live ill toge- 
ther on the whole : " My father (says he) could 
always take his horse and ride away for orders 
when things went badly." The lady's maiden 
name was Ford ; and the parson who sits next 
to the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Modern Mid- 
night Conversation was her brother's son. 
This Ford was a man who chose to be eminent 
only for vice, with talents that might have 
made him conspicuous in literature, and re- 
spectable in any profession he could have cho- 
sen : his cousin has mentioned him in the lives 
of Fenton and of Broome ; and when he spoke 
of him to me it was always with tenderness, 
praising his acquaintance with life and manners, 
and recollecting one piece of advice that no man 
surely ever followed more exactly : " Obtain 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 11 

(says Ford) some general principles of every 
science; he who can talk only on one subject, 
or act only in one department, is seldom want- 
ed and perhaps never wished for; while the 
man of general knowledge can often benefit, 
and always please." He used to relate, how- 
ever, another story less to the credit of his 
cousin's penetration, how Ford on some occa- 
sion said to him, " You will make your way 
more easily in the world, I see, as you are con- 
tented to dispute no man's claim to conversa- 
tion excellence ; they will, therefore, more 
willingly allow your pretensions as a writer." 
Can one, on such an occasion, forbear recol- 
lecting the predictions of Boileau's father, when 
stroking the head of the young satirist, Ce petit 
bon homme (says he) na point trop <T esprit, mais 
il ne dira jamais mal de personne ? Such are 
the prognostics formed by men of wit and 
sense, as these two certainly were, concerning 
the future character and conduct of those for 
whose welfare they were honestly and deeply 
concerned ; and so late do those features of 
peculiarity come to their growth, which mark 
a character to all succeeding generations. 

Dr. Johnson first learned to read of his mo- 
ther and her old maid Catharine, in whose lap 



12 ANECDOTES OF 

he well remembered sitting while she explained 
to him the story of St. George and the Dragon. 
I know not whether this is the proper place to 
add, that such was his tenderness, and such 
his gratitude, that he took a journey to Litch- 
field fifty- seven years afterward to support and 
comfort her in her last illness ; he had inquired 
for his nurse, and she was dead. The recol- 
lection of such reading as had delighted him in 
his infancy, made him always persist in fancy- 
ing that it was the only reading which could 
please an infant ; and he used to condemn me 
for putting Newbery's books into their hands 
as too trifling to engage their attention. "Ba- 
bies do not want (said he) to hear about babies ; 
they like to be told of giants and castles, and 
of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate 
their little minds." When in answer I would 
urge the numerous editions and quick sale of 
Tommy Prudent or Goody Two Shoes, " Re- 
member always (said he) that the parents buy the 
books and that the children never read them." 
Mrs. Barbauld however had his best praise, 
and deserved it ; no man was more struck than 
Mr. Johnson with voluntary descent from pos- 
sible splendor to painful duty. 

At eight years old he went to school, for his 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 13 

health would not permit him to be sent sooner ; 
and at the age of ten years his mind was dis- 
turbed by scruples of infidelity, which preyed 
upon his spirits, and made him very uneasy; 
the more so, as he revealed his uneasiness to no 
one, being naturally, as he said, "of a sullen 
and reserved disposition." He searched, how- 
ever, diligently but fruitlessly, for evidences of 
the truth of revelation ; and at length recol- 
lecting a book he had once seen in his father's 
shop, entitled, De Veritate Religionis, Sec. he be- 
gan to think himself highly culpable for neg- 
lecting such a means of information, and took 
himself severely to task for this sin, adding ma- 
ny acts of voluntary, and to others unknown, 
penance. The first opportunity which offered 
(of course) he seized the book with avidity; 
but on examination not finding himself scholar 
enough to peruse its contents, set his heart at 
rest ; and, not thinking to enquire whether there 
were any English books written on the subject, 
followed his usual amusements, and considered 
his conscience as lightened of a crime. He 
redoubled his diligence to learn the language 
that contained the information he most wished 
for; but from the pain which guilt had given 







14 ANECDOTES OF 

him, he now began to deduce the soul's immor- 
tality, which was the point that belief first 
stopped at ; and from that moment resolving 
to be a Christian, became one of the most zea- 
lous and pious ones our nation ever produced. 
When he had told me this odd anecdote of his 
childhood^ " I cannot imagine (said he) what 
makes me talk of myself to you so, for I really 
never mentioned this foolish story to any body 
except Dr. Taylor, not even to my dear dear 
Bathurst, whom I loved better than ever I lov- 
ed any human creature ; but poor Bathurst is 
dead ! ! ! "—Here a long pause and a few tears 
ensued. Why sir, said I, how like is all this 
to Jean Jaques Rousseau ! as like, I mean, as 
the sensations of frost and fire, when my child 
complained yesterday that the ice she was eat- 
ing burned her mouth. Mr. Johnson laughed 
at the incongruous ideas ; but the first thing 
which presented itself to the mind of an inge- 
nious and learned friend whom I had the plea- 
sure to pass some time with here at Florence, 
was the same resemblance, though I think the 
two characters had little in common, farther 
than an early attention to things beyond the 
capacity of other babies, a keen sensibility of 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 15 

right and wrong, and a warmth of imagination 
little consistent with sound and perfect health. 
I have heard him relate another odd thing of 
himself too, but it is one which every body has 
heard as well as me : how, when he was about 
nine years old, having got the play of Hamlet 
in his hand, and reading it quietly in his fa- 
ther's kitchen, he kept on steadily enough, till 
coming to the ghost scene, he suddenly hurried 
up stairs to the street-door that he might see 
people about him : such an incident, as he was 
not unwilling to relate it, is probably in every 
one's possession now ; he told it as a testi- 
mony to the merits of Shakespeare : but one 
day when my son was going to school, and 
dear Dr. Johnson followed as far as the garden - 
gate, praying for his salvation, in a voice which 
those who listened attentively could hear plain 
enough, he said to me suddenly, "Make your 
boy tell you his dreams : the first corruption 
that entered into my heart was communicated 
in a dream." What was it, sir? said I. "Do 
not ask me," replied he with much violence, 
and walked away in apparent agitation. I never 
durst make any further inquiries. He retained 
a strong aversion for the memory of Hunter, 



16 ANECDOTES OF 

one of his schoolmasters, who, he said once, 
was a brutal fellow : "so brutal (added he), 
that no man who had been educated by him 
ever sent his son to the same school." I have 
however heard him acknowledge his scholar- 
ship to be very great. His next master he 
despised, as knowing less than himself, I found ; 
but the name of that gentleman has slipped my 
memory. Mr. Johnson was himself exceed- 
ingly disposed to the general indulgence of 
children, and was even scrupulously and cere- 
moniously attentive not to offend them : he had 
strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty 
people always find to erase early impressions 
either of kindness or resentment, and said, "he 
should never have so loved his mother when a 
man, had she not given him coffee she could 
ill afford, to gratify his appetite when a boy." 
If you had had children, sir, said I, would you 
have taught them any thing ? "I hope (replied 
he) that I should have willingly lived on bread 
and water to obtain instruction for them ; but I 
would not have set their future friendship to ha- 
zard for the sake of thrusting into their heads 
knowledge of things for which they might not 
perhaps have either taste or necessity. You 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 17 

teach your daughters the diameters of the pla- 
nets, and wonder when you have done that 
they do not delight in your company. No 
science can be communicated by mortal crea- 
tures without attention from the scholar ; no at- 
tention can be obtained from children without 
the infliction of pain, and pain is never remem- 
bered without resentment/' That something 
should be learned, was, however, so certainly 
his opinion, that I have heard him say, how 
education had been often compared to agricul- 
ture, yet that it resembled it chieily in this : 
"that if nothing is sown, no crop (says he) can 
be obtained." His contempt of the lady who 
fancied her son could be eminent without study, 
because Shakspeare was found wanting in 
scholastic learning, was expressed in terms so 
gross and so well known, I will not repeat them 
here. 

To recollect, however, and to repeat the 
sayings of Dr. Johnson, is almost all that can 
be done by the writers of his life ; as his life, 
at least since my acquaintance with him, con- 
sisted in little else than talking, when he was 
not absolutely employed in some serious piece 
of work ; and whatever work he did, seemed 

c 



18 ANECDOTES OF 

so much below his powers of performance, that 
he appeared the idlest of all human beings; 
ever musing till he was called out to converse, 
and conversing till the fatigue of his friends, or 
the promptitude of his own temper to take of- 
fence, consigned him back again to silent me- 
ditation. 

The remembrance of what had passed in his 
own childhood, made Mr. Johnson very solici- 
tous to preserve the felicity of children ; and 
when he had persuaded Dr. Sumner to remit 
the tasks usually given to fill up boys' time du- 
ring the holidays, he rejoiced exceedingly in 
the success of his negociation, and told me that 
he had never ceased representing to all the 
eminent schoolmasters in England, the absurd 
tyranny of poisoning the hour of permitted 
pleasure, by keeping future misery before the 
children's eyes, and tempting them by bribery 
or falsehood to evade it. "Bob Sumner (said 
he), however, I have at length prevailed upon : 
I know not indeed whether his tenderness was 
persuaded, or his reason convinced, but the ef- 
fect will always be the same. Poor Dr. Sum- 
ner died, however, before the next vacation." 

Mr. Johnson was of opinion, too, that young 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 19 

people should have positive, not general rules 
given for their direction. " My mother (said 
he) was always telling me that I did not behave 
myself properly ; that I should endeavour to 
learn behaviour, and such cant : but when I re- 
plied, that she ought to tell me what to do, and 
what to avoid, her admonitions were common- 
ly, for that time at least, at an end." 

This, I fear, was however at best a momen- 
tary refuge, found out by perverseness. No 
man knew better than Johnson in how many 
nameless and numberless actions behaviour con- 
sists : actions which can scarcely be reduced to 
rule, and which come under no description. 
Of these he retained so many very strange ones, 
that I suppose no one who saw his odd manner 
of gesticulating, much blamed or wondered at 
the good lady's solicitude concerning her sons 
behaviour. 

Though he was attentive to the peace of chil- 
dren in general, no man had a stronger contempt 
than he for such parents as openly profess that 
they cannot govern their children. " How (says 
he) is an army governed? Such people, for the 
most part, multiply prohibitions till obedience 
becomes impossible, and authority appears 

c 2 



20 ANECDOTES OF 

absurd ; and never suspect that they tease 
their family, their friends, and themselves, only 
because conversation runs low, and something 
must be said." 

Of parental authority, indeed, few people 
thought with a lower degree of estimation. I 
one day mentioned the resignation of Cyrus to 
his father's will, as related by Xenophon, when, 
after all his conquests, he requested the consent 
of Cambyses to his marriage with a neighbour- 
ing princess ; and I added Kollin's applause 
and recommendation of the example. " Do 
you not perceive then (says Johnson), that Xe- 
nophon on this occasion commends like a pe- 
dant, and Pere Rollin applauds like a slave ? 
If Cyrus by his conquests had not purchased 
emancipation, he had conquered to little pur- 
pose indeed. Can you forbear to see the fol- 
ly of a fellow who has in his care the lives of 
thousands, when he begs his papa's permission 
to be married, and confesses his inability to de- 
cide in a matter which concerns no man's hap- 
piness but his own?" — Mr. Johnson caught me 
another time reprimanding the daughter of my 
housekeeper for having sat down unpermitted 
iu her mother's presence. " Why, she gets her 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 21 

living, does she not (said he), without her mo- 
ther's help? Let the wench alone/' continued 
he. And when we were again out of the wo- 
men's sight who were concerned in the dispute, 
"Poor people's children, dear lady (said he) 
never respect them : I did not respect my own 
mother, though I loved her : and one day when 
in anger she called me a puppy, I asked her if 
she knew what they called a puppy's mother." 
We were talking of a young fellow who used to 
come often to the house ; he was about fifteen 
years old or less, if I remember right, and had 
a manner at once sullen and sheepish. " That 
lad (says Mr. Johnson) looks like the son of a 
schoolmaster ; which (added he) is one of the 
very worst conditions of childhood ; such a boy 
has no father, or worse than none; he never 
can reflect on his parent but the reflection 
brings to his mind some idea of pain inflicted 
or of sorrow suffered." 

I will relate one thing more that Dr. John- 
son said about babyhood before I quit the 
subject; it was this: "That little people should 
be encouraged always to tell whatever they 
hear particularly striking, to some brother, 
sister, or servant, immediately before the 



22 ANECDOTES OF 

impression is erased by the intervention of 
newer occurrences. He perfectly remember- 
ed the first time he ever heard of heaven 
and hell (he said) because when his mother 
had made out such a description of both 
places as she thought likely to seize the 
attention of her infant auditor, who was then 
in bed with her, she got up, and dressing 
him before the usual time, sent him di- 
rectly to call a favourite workman in the 
house, to whom she knew he would communi- 
cate the conversation while it was yet impres- 
sed upon his mind. The event was what she 
wished, and it was to that method chiefly that 
he owed his uncommon felicity of remembering 
distant occurrances, and long-past conversa- 
tions." 

At the age of eighteen Dr. Johnson quitted 
school, and escaped from the tuition of those 
he hated or those he despised. I have heard 
him relate very few college adventures. He 
used to say that our best accounts of his beha- 
viour there would be gathered from Dr. Adams 
and Dr. Taylor, and that he was sure they 
would always tell the truth. He told me how- 
ever one day, when he was first entered at the 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 23 

university, he passed a morning, in compliance 
with the customs of the place, at his tutor's 
chambers ; but finding him no scholar, went no 
more. In about ten days after, meeting the 
same gentleman, Mr. Jordan, in the street, he 
offered to pass by without saluting him ; but 
the tutor stopped and inquired, not roughly 
neither, what he had been doing ; " Sliding on 
the ice," was the reply ; and so turned away 
with disdain. He laughed very heartily at the 
recollection of his own insolence, and said they 
endured it from him with wonderful acquies- 
cence, and a gentleness that, whenever he 
thought of it, astonished himself. He told me 
too, that when he made his first declamation, 
he wrote over but one copy, and that coarsely ; 
and having given it into the hand of the tutor 
who stood to receive it as he passed, was obli- 
ged to begin by chance and continue on how he 
could, for he had got but little of it by heart ; so, 
fairly trusting to his present powers for imme- 
diate supply, he finished by adding astonish- 
ment to the applause of all who knew how little 
was owing to study. A prodigious risk, however, 
said some one : " Not at all (exclaims Johnson), 
no man I suppose leaps at once into deep wa- 
ter who does not know how to swim." 



24 ANECDOTES OF 

I doubt not but this story will be told by 
many of his biographers, and said so to him 
when he told it me on the 18th of July, 1773. 
" And who will be my biogropher (said he), 
do you think ?" Goldsmith, no doubt, replied 
I, and he will do it the best among us. " The 
dog would write it best to be sure (replied he); 
but his particular malice towards me, and ge- 
neral disregard for truth, would make the book 
useless to all, and injurious to my character." 
Oh ! as to that, said I, we should all fasten up- 
on him, and force him to do you justice ; but 
the worst is, the doctor does not know your 
life ; nor can I tell indeed who does, except 
Dr. Taylor of Ashbourne. " Why Taylor (said 
he) is better acquainted with my heart than 
any man or woman now alive ; and the history 
of my Oxford exploits lies all between him and 
Adams ; but Dr. James knows my very early 
days better than he. After my coming to Lon- 
don to drive the world about a little, you must 
all go to Jack Hawkesworth for anecdotes : I 
lived in great familiarity with him (though I 
think there was not much affection) from the 
year 1753 till the time Mr. Thrale and you 
took me up. I intend, however, to disappoint 
the rogues, and either make you write the life, 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 25 

with Taylor's intelligence ; or, which is better, 
do it myself, after outliving you all. I am now 
(added he) keeping a diary, in hopes of using 
it for that purpose some time." Here the con- 
versation stopped, from my accidentally look- 
ing in an old magazine of the year 1768, where 
I saw the following lines with his name to them, 
and asked if they were his. 

VERSES said to be written by Dr. Samuel Johnson, at the request 
of a Gentleman to whom a Lady had given a Sprig of Myrtle. 

What hopes, what terrors, does thy gift create, 
Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate ; 
The Myrtle, ensign of supreme command, 
Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand ; 
Not less capricious than a reigning fair, 
Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. 
In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, 
In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain : 
The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads, 
Th' unhappy lovers' grave the myrtle spreads : 
O then the meaning of thy gift impart, 
And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart ! 
Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom, 
Adorn Philander's head, or grace his tomb. 

"Why now, do but see how the world is 
gaping for a wonder! (cries Mr. Johnson.) I 
think it is now just forty years ago that a 
young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him 
by a girl he courted, and asked me to write 



26 



ANECDOTES OF 



him some verses that he might present her in 
return. I promised, but forgot; and when he 
called for his lines at the time agreed on. Sit 
still a moment (says I), dear Mund, and I'll 
fetch them thee — so stepped aside for five mi- 
nutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep 
such a stir about." 

Upon revising these Anecdotes, it is impos- 
sible not to be struck with shame and regret 
that one treasured no more of them up ; but no 
experience is sufficient to cure the vice of neg- 
ligence ; whatever one sees constantly, or might 
see constantly, becomes uninteresting ; and we 
suffer every trivial occupation, every slight 
amusement, to hinder us from writing down, 
what indeed we cannot choose but remem- 
ber; but what we should wish to recollect with 
pleasure, unpoisoned by remorse for not re- 
membering more. While I write this, I neg- 
lect impressing my mind with the wonders of 
art, and beauties of nature, that now surround 
me ; and shall one day, perhaps, think on the 
hours I might have profitably passed in the 
Florentine Gallery, and, reflecting on Ra- 
phael's St John at that time, as upon Johnson's 
conversation in this moment, may justly ex- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 27 

claim of the months spent by me most delight- 
fully in Itlay 

That I priz'd every hour that pass'd by, 

Beyond all that had pleas'd me before; 
But now they are past, and I sigh 

And I grieve that I priz'd them no more. 

S hen stone. 

Dr. Johnson delighted in his own partiality 
for Oxford ; and one day, at my house, enter- 
tained five members of the other university 
with various instances of the superiority of Ox- 
ford, enumerating the gigantic names of many 
men whom it had produced, with apparent tri- 
umph. At last I said to him, Why there hap- 
pens to be no less than five Cambridge men in 
the room now. " I did not (said he) think of 
that till you told me ; but the wolf don't count 
the sheep." "When the company were retired, 
we happened to be talking of Dr. Barnard, the 
provost of Eton, who died about that time; 
and after a long and just eulogium on his wit, 
his learning, and goodness of heart — "He was 
the only man too (says Mr. Johnson quite seri- 
ously) that did justice to my good breeding; 
and you may observe that I am well-bred to 
a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man 



28 ANECDOTES OF 

(continued he, not observing the amazement 
of his hearers), no man is so cautious not to 
interrupt another; no man thinks it so ne- 
cessary to appear attentive when others are 
speaking; no man so steadily refuses prefer- 
ence to himself, or so willingly bestows it on 
another, as I do ; nobody holds so strongly as 
I do the necessity of ceremony, and the ill ef- 
fects which follow the breach of it : yet people 
think me rude; but Barnard did me justice." 
Tis pity,, said I laughing, that he had not heard 
you compliment the Cambridge men after din- 
ner to-day. "Why (replied re) I was in- 
clined to down them sure enough ; but then a 
fellow deserves to be of Oxford that talks so." 
I have heard him at other times relate how he 
used to sit in some coffee-house there, and turn 
M 's C-r-ct-c-s into ridicule for the diver- 
sion of himself and of chance comers-in. "The 
Elf — da (says he) was too exquisitely pretty ; 
I could make no fun out of that." When up- 
on some occasions he would express his asto- 
nishment that he should have an enemy in the 
world, while he had been doing nothing but 
good to his neighbours, I used to make him re- 
collect these circumstances: "Why child (said 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 29 

he), what harm could that do the fellow ? I 

always thought very well of M n for a 

Cambridge man; he is, I believe, a mighty 
blameless character." Such tricks were, how- 
ever, the more unpardonable in Mr. Johnson, 
because no one could harangue like him about 
the difficulty always found in forgiving petty 
injuries, or in provoking by needless offence. 
Mr. Jordan, his tutor, had much of his affec- 
tion, though he despised his want of scholastic 
learning. " That creature would (said he) de- 
fend his pupils to the last : no young lad under 
his care should suffer for committing slight 
improprieties, while he had breath to defend 
or power to protect them. If I had had sons 
to send to college (added he), Jordan should 
have been their tutor." 

Sir William Browne the physician, who li- 
ved to a very extraordinary age, and was in 
other respects an odd mortal, with more genius 
than understanding, and more self-sufficiency 
than wit, was the only person who ventured to 
oppose Mr. Johnson, when he had a mind to 
shine by exalting his favourite university, and 
to express his contempt of the Whiggish no- 
tions which prevail at Cambridge. He did it 



30 ANECDOTES OF 

once, however, with surprising felicity : his 
antagonist having repeated with an air of 
triumph the famous epigram written by Dr. 
Trapp, 

Our royal master saw, with heedful eyes, 

Tho wants of his two universities : 

Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why 

That learned body wanted loyalty : 

But books to Cambridge gave, as, well discerning, 

That that right loyal body wanted learning, 

Which, says sir William, might well be an- 
swered thus : 

The king to Oxford sent his troop of horse, 
For Tories own no argument but force ; 
With equal cLre to Cambridge books he sent, 
For Whigs allow no force but argument. 

Mr. Johnson did him the justice to say, it 
was one of the happiest extemporaneous pro- 
ductions he ever met with; though he once 
comically confessed, that he hated to repeat 
the wit of a Whig urged in support of Whig- 
gism. Says Garrickto him one day, Why did 
not you make me a Tory, when we lived so 
much together ? you love to make people To- 
ries. " Why (says Johnson, pulling a heap of 
halfpence from his pocket,) did not the king 
make these guineas V* 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 31 

Of Mr. Johnson's Toryism the world has 
long been witness, and the political pamphlets 
written by him in defence of his party, are vi- 
gorous and elegant. He often delighted his 
imagination with the thoughts of having de- 
stroyed Junius, an anonymous writer who 
flourished in the years 1769 and 1770, and 
who kept himself so ingeniously concealed from 
every endeavour to detect him, that no proba- 
ble guess was, I believe, ever formed concern- 
ing the author's name, though at that time the 
subject of general conversation. Mr. Johnson 
made us all laugh one day, because I had re- 
ceived a remarkably fine Stilton cheese as a 
present from some person who had packed and 
directed it carefully, but without mentioning 
whence it came. Mr. Thrale, desirous to 
know who we were obliged to, asked every 
friend as they came in, but nobody owned it : 
" Depend upon it, sir (says Johnson), it was 
sent by Junius" 

The False Alarm, his first and favourite 
pamphlet, was written at our house between 
eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve 
o'clock on Thursday night; we read it to Mr. 
Thrale when he came very late home from the 



32 ANECDOTES OF 

House of Commons : the other political tracts 
followed in their order. I have forgotten which 
contains the stroke at Junius ; but shall for ever 
remember the pleasure it gave him to have 
written it. It was however in the year 1775 that 
Mr. Edmund Burke made the famous speech 
in parliament, that struck even foes with admi- 
ration, and friends with delight. Among the 
nameless thousands who are contented to echo 
those praises they have not skill to invent, / 
ventured, before Dr. Johnson himself, to ap- 
plaud, with rapture, the beautiful passage in 
it concerning lord Bathurst and the angel; 
Which, said our Doctor, had I been in the 
house, I would have answered thus: 

" Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to Wharton, 
or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent 
Whigs of the last age, the devil had, not with 
any great impropriety, consented to appear; he 
would perhaps in somewhat like these words 
have commenced the conversation : 

"You seem, my lord, to be concerned at 
the judicious apprehension, that while you 
are sapping the foundations of royalty at home, 
and propagating here the dangerous doctrine of 
resistance; the distance of America may secure 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 33 

its inhabitants from your arts, though active i 
but I will unfold to you the gay prospects of 
futurity. This people, now so innocent and 
harmless, shall draw the sword against their 
mother- country, and bathe its point in the 
blood of their benefactors : this people, now 
contented with a little, shall then refuse to 
spare, what they themselves confess they could 
not miss ; and these men, now so honest and 
so grateful, shall, in return for peace and for 
protection, see their vile agents in the House 
of Parliament, there to sow the seeds of sedi- 
tion, and propagate confusion, perplexity, and 
pain. Be not dispirited then at the contempla- 
tion of their present happy state; I promise 
you that anarchy, poverty, and death, shall, by 
my care, be carried even across the spacious 
Atlantic, and settle in America itself, the sure 
consequences of our beloved Whiggism." 

This I thought a thing so very particular, 
that I begged his leave to write it down di- 
rectly, before any thing could intervene that 
might make me forget the force of the ex- 
pressions : a trick, which I have however seen 
played on common occasions, of sitting steadily 
down at the other end of the room to write at 



34 ANECDOTES OF 

the moment what should be said in company, ei- 
ther by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised 
myself, nor approved of in another. There is 
something so ill-bred, and so inclining to trea- 
chery in this conduct, that were it commonly 
adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled 
from society, and a conversation assembly-room 
would become tremendous as a court of justice. 
A set of acquaintance joined in familiar chat 
may say a thousand things, which (as the 
phrase is) pass well enough at the time, though 
they cannot stand the test of critical examina- 
tion ; and as all talk beyond that which is ne- 
cessary to the purposes of actual business is a 
kind of game, there will be ever found ways of 
playing fairly or unfairly at it, which distin- 
guish the gentleman from the juggler. Dr. 
Johnson, as well as many of my acquaintance 
knew that I kept a common-place book ; and 
he one day said to me good-humouredly, that 
he would give me something to write in my 
repository. "I warrant (said he) there is a 
great deal about me in it : you shall have at 
least one thing worth your pains ; so if you 
will get the pen and ink, I will repeat to you 
Anacreon's Dove directly ; but tell at the same 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 35 

time, that as I never was struck with any thing 
in the Greek language till I read that, so I ne- 
ver read any thing in the same language since, 
that pleased me as much. I hope my transla- 
tion (continued he) is not worse than that of 
Frank Fawkes." Seeing me disposed to laugh, 
" Nay, nay (said he), Frank Fawkes has done 
them very finely." 

Lovely courier of the sky, 
Whence and whither dost thou fly ? 
Scatt'ring as thy pinions play, 
Liquid fragrance all the way : 
Is it business ? is it love ? 
Tell me, tell me, gentle dove. 

" Soft Anacreon's vows I bear, 
Vows to Myrtale the fair ; 
Graced with all that charms the heart, 
Blushing nature, smiling art. 
Venus, courted by an ode, 
On the bard her Dove bestow'd. 
Vested with a master's right 
Now Anacreon rules my flight: 
His the letters that you see, 
Weighty charge consign'd to me : 
Think not yet my service hard, 
Joyless task without reward ; 
Smiling at my master's gates, 
Freedom my return awaits. 
But the liberal grant in vain 
Tempts me to be wild again : 
Can a prudent Dove decline 
Blissful bondage such as mine ? 
Over hills and fields to roam, 
Fortune's guest without a home ; 

D 2 



36 ANECDOTES OF 

Under leaves to hide one's head, 
Slightly shelter'd coarsely fed; 
Now my better lot bestows 
Sweet repast, and soft repose ; 
Now the generous bowl I sip 

As it leaves Anacreon's lip ; . J 

Void of care, and free from dread, 
From his fingers snatch his bread, 
Then with luscious plenty gay, 
" Round his chamber dance and play ; 
Or from wine, as courage springs, 
O'er his face extend my wings ; 
And when feast and frolic tire, 
Drop asleep upon his lyre. 
This is all, be quick and go, 
More than all thou canst not know ; 
Let me now my pinions ply, 
I hav« chatter' d like,apie." 

When I had finished, "But you must re- 
member to had (says Mr. Johnson), that though 
these verses were planned, and even begun, 
when I was sixteen years old, I never could 
find time to make an end of them before I was 
sixty-eight." 

This facility of writing, and this dilatoriness 
ever to write, Mr. Johnson always retained, 
from the days that he lay a- bed and dictated 
his first publication to Mr. Hector, who acted 
as his amanuensis, to the moment he made me 
copy out those variations in Pope's Homer 
which are printed in the Poets' Lives: "And 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 37 

now (3&id he, when I had finished it for him), I 
fear not Mr. Nicholson of a pin." — The fine 
Rambler on the subject of Procrastination was 
hastily composed, as I have heard, in sir Joshua 
Reynolds's parlour, while the boy waited to 
carry it to press: and numberless are the in- 
stances of his writing under immediate pressure 
of importunity or distress. He told me that 
the character of Sober in the Idler, was by him- 
self intended as his own portrait ; and that he 
had his own outset into life in his eye when he 
wrote the eastern story of Gelaleddin. Of the 
allegorical papers in the Rambler, Labour and 
Rest was his favourite ; but Serotinus, the man 
who returns late in life to receive honours in his 
native country, and meets with mortification 
instead of respect, was by him considered as a 
masterpiece in the science of life and manners. 
The character of Prospero in the fourth volume, 
Garrick took to be his; and I have heard the 
author say, that he never forgave the offence. 
Sophron was likewise a picture drawn from re- 
ality ; and by Gelidus the philosopher, he meant 
to represent Mr. Coulson, a mathematician, 
who formerly lived at Rochester. The man 
immortalized for purring like a cat was, as he 



38 ANECDOTES OF 

told me, one Busby, a proctor in the Commons. 
He who barked so ingeniously, and then called 
the drawer to drive away the dog, was father 
to Dr. Salter of the Charterhouse. He who 
sung a song, and by correspondent motions of 
his arm chalked out a giant on the wall, was 
one Richardson, an attorney. The letter sign- 
ed Sunday, was written by Miss Talbot ; and 
he fancied the billets in the first volume of the 
Rambler, were sent him by Miss Mulso, now 
Mrs. Chapone, The papers contributed by 
Mrs. Carter, had much of his esteem, though 
he always blamed me for preferring the letter 
signed Chariessa to the allegory, where religion 
and superstition are indeed most masterly de- 
lineated. 

When Dr. Johnson read his own satire, in 
which the life of a scholar is painted, with the 
various obstructions thrown in his way to for- 
tune and to fame, he burst into a passion of 
tears one day : the family and Mr Scott only 
were present, who, in a jocose way, clapped 
him on the back, and said, What's all this, my 
dear sir ? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you 
know, were all troubled with melancholy. — As 
there are many gentlemen of the same name, 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 39 

I should say, perhaps, that it was a Mr. Scott 
who married Miss Robinson, and that I think 
I have heard Mr. Thrale call him George Lewis, 
or George Augustus, I have forgot which. He 
was a very large man, however, and made out 
the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules co- 
mically enough. The Doctor was so delighted 
at his odd sally, that he suddenly embraced 
him, and the subject was immediately changed. 
I never saw Mr. Scott but that once in my life. 
Dr. Johnson was liberal enough in granting 
literary assistance to others, I think ; and in- 
numerable are the prefaces, sermons, lectures, 
and dedications, which he used to make for 
people who begged of him. Mr. Murphy re- 
lated in his and my hearing one day, and he 
did not deny it, that when Murphy joked him 
the week before for having been so diligent of 
late between Dodd's sermon and Kelly's pro- 
logue, that Dr. Johnson replied, " Why, sir, 
when they come to me with a dead staymaker 
and a dying parson, what can a man do ?" He 
said, however, that " he hated to give away 
literary performances, or even to sell them too 
cheaply : the next generation shall not accuse 
me (added he) of beating down the price of li- 
terature : one hates, besides, ever to give that 



40 ANECDOTES OE 

which one has been accustomed to sell ; would 
not you, sir (turning to Mr. Thrale), rather 
give away money than porter ?". 

Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, 
been a close student, and used to advise young 
people never to be without a book in their 
pocket, to be read at by times when they had 
nothing else to do. " It has been by that 
means (said he to a boy at our house one day) 
that all my knowledge has been gained, except 
what I have picked up by running about the 
world with my wits ready to observe, and my 
tongue ready to talk. A man is seldom in a 
humour to unlock his book case, set his desk 
in order, and betake himself to serious study ; 
but a retentive memory will do something, and 
a fellow shall have strange credit given him, if 
he can but recollect striking passages from 
different books, keep the authors separate in 
his head, and bring his stock of knowledge art- 
fully into play : how else (added he) do the 
gamesters manage when they play for more 
money than they are worth?" His Dictionary, 
however, could not, one would think, have been 
written by running up and down ; but he really 
did not consider it as a great performance ; and 
used to say, '/ that he might have done it ea- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 41 

sily in two years, had not his health received 
several shocks during the time." 

When Mr. Thrale, inconsequence of this de- 
claration, teased him in the year 1769 to give a 
new edition of it, because (said he) there are 
four or five gross faults: "Alas, sir (replied 
Johnson), there are four or five hundred faults, 
instead of four or five ; but you do not consider 
that it would take me up three whole months' 
labour, and when the time was expired the 
work would not be done." When the booksel- 
lers set him about it, however, some years af- 
ter, he went cheerfully to the business, said he 
was well paid, and that they deserved to have 
it done carefully. His reply to the person who 
complimented him on its coming out first, men- 
tioning the ill success of the French in a similar 
attempt, is well known ; and, I trust, has been 
often recorded : "Why what would you expect, 
dear sir (said he), from fellows that eat frogs?" 
I have however often thought Dr. Johnson more 
free than prudent in professing so loudly his 
little skill in the Greek language : for though 
he considered it as a proof of a narrow mind to 
be too careful of literary reputation, yet no man 
could be more enraged than he, if an enemy, 



42 ANECDOTES OF 

taking advantage of this confession, twitted him 
with his ignorance ; and I remember when the 
King of Denmark was in England, one of his 
noblemen was brought by Mr. Colman to see 
Dr. Johnson at our country-house ; and having 
heard, he said, that he was not famous for 
Greek literature, attacked him on the weak 
side* politely adding, that he chose that con- 
versation on purpose to favour himself. Our 
Doctor, however, displayed so copious, so com- 
pendious a knowledge of authors, books, and 
every branch of learning in that language, that 
the gentleman appeared astonished. When he 
was gone home, says Johnson, " Now for all 
this triumph, I may thank Thrale's Xeno- 
phon here, as, I think, excepting that one, I 
have not looked in a Greek book these ten 
years ; but see what haste my dear friends were 
all in (continued he) to tell this poor innocent 
foreigner that I knew nothing of Greek ! Oh, no, 
he knows nothing of Greek !" with a loud burst 
of laughing. 

When Davies printed the Fugitive Pieces 
without his knowledge or consent; How, said 
I, would Pope have raved, had he been served 
so? "We should never (replied he) have heard 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 43 

the last on't, to be sure ; but then Pope was a 
narrow man : I will however (added he) storm 
and bluster myself & little this time;" — so went 
to London in all the wrath he could muster up. 
At his return I asked how the affair ended : 
" Why (said he), I was a fierce fellow, and 
pretended to be very angry, and Thomas was 
a good-natured fellow, and pretended to be 
very sorry ; so there the matter ended : I be- 
lieve the dog loves me dearly. Mr. Thrale 
(turning to my husband), what shall you and I 
do that is good for Tom Davie s ? We will do 
something for him, to be sure." 

Of Pope as a writer he had the highest opi- 
nion, and once when a lady at our house talked 
of his preface to Shakspeare as superior to 
Pope's, " I fear not, madam (said he), the lit- 
tle fellow has done wonders." His superior 
reverence of Dryden notwithstanding still ap- 
peared in his talk as in his writings; and when 
some one mentioned the ridicule thrown on 
him in the Rehearsal, as having hurt his gene- 
ral character as an author, '* On the contrary 
(says Mr. Johnson), the greatness of Dryden s 
reputation is now the only principal of vitality 
which keeps the duke of Buckingham's play 
from putrefaction." 



44 ANECDOTES OF 

It was not very easy however for people not 
quite intimate with Dr. Johnson, to get exactly 
his opinion of a writer's merit, as he would now 
and then divert himself by confounding those 
who thought themselves obliged to say to- 
morrow what he had said yesterday; and even 
Garrick, who ought to have been better ac- 
quainted with his tricks, professed himself 
mortified, that one time when he was extolling 
Dryden in a rapture that I suppose disgusted 
his friend, Mr. Johnson suddenly challenged 
him to produce twenty lines in a series that 
would not disgrace the poet and his admirer. 
Garrick produced a passage that he had once 
heard the Doctor commend, in which he now 
found, if I remember rightly, sixteen faults, 
and made Garrick look silly at his own table. 
When I told Mr. Johnson the story, " Why what 
a monkey was David now (says he), to tell of 
his own disgrace !" And in the course of that 
hour's chat he told me, how he used to tease 
Garrick by commendations of the tomb scene 
in Congreve's Morning Bride, protesting that 
Shakspeare had in the same line of excellence 
nothing as good: "All which is strictly true 
(said he) ; but that is no reason for supposing 
Congreve is to stand in competition with Shak- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 45 

speare : these fellows know not how to blame, 
nor how to commend." I forced him one day, 
in a similar humour, to prefer Young's descrip- 
tion of Night to the so-much-admired ones of 
Dryden and Shakspeare, as more forcible, 
and more general. Every reader is not either 
a lover or a tyrant, but every reader is inter- 
ested when he hears that 

Creation sleeps; 'tis as the general pulse 
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause j 
An awful pause — prophetic of its end. 

"This (said he) is true; but remember that 
taking the compositions of Young in general, 
they are but like bright stepping-stones over a 
miry road : Young froths, and foams, and bub- 
bles, sometimes very vigorously ; but we must 
not compare the noise made by your tea-kettle 
here with the roaring of the ocean." 

Somebody was praising Corneille one day in 
opposition to Shakspeare: " Corneille is to 
Shakspeare (replied Mr. Johnson) as a clipped 
hedge is to a forest." When we talked of 
Steele's Essays, "They are too thin (says our 
critic) for an Englishman's taste : mere super- 
ficial observations on life and manners, without 



46 ANECDOTES OF 

erudition enough to make them keep, like the 
light French wines, which turn sour with stand- 
ing awhile for want of body, as we call it." 

Of a much-admired poem, when extolled as 
beautiful, he replied, " That it had indeed the 
beauty of a bubble : the colours are gay (said 
he), but the substance slight." Of James Har- 
ris's dedication to his Hermes 1 have heard him 
observe, that, though but fourteen lines long, 
there were six grammatical faults in it. A 
friend was praising the style of Dr. Swift ; Mr. 
Johnson did not find himself in the humour to 
agree with him : the critic was driven from 
one of his performances to the other. At 
length you must allow me, said the gentleman, 
that there are strong facts in the account of the 
Four last Years of Queen Anne: " Yes surely, 
sir (replies Johnson), and so there are in the 
ordinary of Newgate's account." This was 
like the story which Mr. Murphy tells, and 
Johnson always acknowledged : How Mr. Rose 
of Hammersmith, contending for the preference 
of Scotch writers over the English, after having 
set up his authors like nine-pins, while the 
Doctor kept bowling them down again ; at 
L; 1, to make sure of victory, he named Fergu- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 47 

son upon Civil Society, and praised the book 
for being written in a new manner. " I do not 
(says Johnson) perceive the value of this new 
manner ; it is only like Buckinger, who had no 
hands, and so wrote with his feet." Of a mo- 
dern Martial, when it came out, " There are 
in these verses (says Dr. Johnson) too much 
folly for madness, I think, and too much mad- 
ness for folly." If, however, Mr. Johnson la- 
mented, that the nearer he approached to his 
own times, the more enemies he should make, 
by telling biographical truths in his Lives of 
the later Poets, what may I not apprehend, 
who, if I relate anecdotes of Mr. Johnson, am 
obliged to repeat expressions of severity, and 
sentences of contempt ? Let me at least soften 
them a little, by saying, that he did not hate 
the persons he treated with roughness, or de- 
spise them whom he drove from him by appa- 
rent scorn. He really loved and respected 
many whom he would not suffer to love him. 
And when he related to me a short dialogue 
that passed between himself and a writer of 
the first eminence in the world, when he was 
in Scotland, I was shocked to think how he 
must have disgusted him. " Dr. asked 



43 ANECDOTES OF 

me (said he), why I did not join in their public- 
worship when among them ? for (said he) I 
went to your churches often when in England." 
"So (replied Johnson) I have read that the 
Siamese sent ambassadors to Lewis Quatorze, 
but I never heard that the king of France 
thought it worth his while to send Ambassa- 
dors from his court to that of Siam" He was 
no gentler with myself, or those for whom I 
had the greatest regard. When I one day la- 
mented the loss of a first cousin killed in Ame- 
rica — "Prithee, my dear (said he,) have done 
with canting : how would the world be worse 
for it, I may ask, if all your relations were at 
once spitted like larks, and roasted for Presto's 
supper ?" Presto was the dog that lay under 
the table while we talked. When we went 
into Wales together, and spent some time at 
sir Robert Cotton's at Lleweny, one day at 
dinner I meant to please Mr. Johnson particu- 
larly with a dish of very young peas. Are not 
they charming ? said I to him, while he was 
eating them. — " Perhaps (said he) they would 
be so — to a pig" I only instance these re- 
plies, to excuse my mentioning those he made 
to others. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 49 

When a well-known author published his 
poems in the year 1777 : Such a one's verses 
are come out, said I: "Yes (replied Johnson), 
and this frost has struck them in again. Here 
are some lines I have written to ridicule them : 
but remember that I love the fellow dearly, now 
— for all I laugh at him. 

Wheresoe'er I turn my view, 
All is strange, yet nothing new : 
Endless labour all along, 
Endless labour to be wrong • 
Phrase that Time has flung away ; 
Uncouth words in disarray, 
Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, 
Ode, and elegy, and sonnet." 

When he parodied the verses of another emi* 
nent writer, it was done with more provocation, 
I believe, and with some merry malice. A se- 
rious translation of the same lines, which I 
think are from Euripides, may be found in Bur- 
ney's History of Music— Here are the burles- 
que ones : 

Err shall they not, who resolute explore 
Time's gloomy backward with judicious eyes ♦ 
And scanning right the practices of yore, 
Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise. 

They to the dome where smoke with curling play 
Announced the dinner to the regions round, 

E 



50 ANECDOTES OF 

Summon'd the singer blythe, and harper gay, 
And aided wine with dulcet-streaming sound. 

The better use of notes, or sweet or shrill, 
By quiv'ring string, or modulated wind ; 
Trumpet or lyre— to their arch bosoms chill, 
Admission ne'er had sought, or could not find. 

Oh ! send them to the sullen mansions dun , 
Her baleful eyes where Sorrow rolls around ; 
Where gloom-enamour'd Mischief loves to dwell, 
And Murder, all blood-bolter'd, schemes the wound. 

When cates luxuriant pile the spacious dishy 
And purple nectar glads the festive hour j 
The guest, without a want, without a wish, 
Can yield no room to Music's soothing poweF. 

Some of the old legendary stories put in verse 
by modern writers provoked him to caricature 
them thus one day at Streatham; but they are 
already well -know, I am sure. 

The tender infant, meek and mild, 

Fell down upon the stone ; 
The nurse took up the squealing child, 

But still the child squeal'd on. 

A famous ballad also, beginning Rio verde, 
Rio verde, when I commended the translation 
of it, he said he could do it better himself — as 
thus : 

Glassy water, glassy water, 
Down whose current, clear and strong, 
Chiefs confus'd in mutual slaughter, 
Moor and Christian roll along. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 51 

But sir, said I, this is not ridiculous at all. 
<"Why no (replied he), why should I always 
write ridiculously? — perhaps because I made 
these verses to imitate such a one, naming 
him: 

Hermit hoar, in solemn cell 
Wearing out life's evening gray ; 
Strike thy bosom sage ! and tell, 
What is bliss, and which the way ? 

Thus I spoke, and speaking sigh'd, 
Scarce repress'd the starting tear, 
When the hoary sage replied, 
Come, my lad, and drink some beer." 

I could give another comical instance of 
caricatura imitation. Recollecting some day, 
when praising these verses of Lopez de Vega, 

Se acquien los leones vcnce 
Vence una muger hermosa 
O el de flaco averguenge 
O ella di ser mas furiosa, 

more than he thought they deserved, Mr. 
Johnson instantly observed, "that they were 
founded on a trivial conceit ; and that conceit 
ill- explained, and ill-expressed beside. — The 
lady, we all know, does not conquer in the 
same manner as the lion does : 'tis a mere play 

e 2 



52 ANECDOTES OF 

of words (added he), and you might as well 
say, that 

If the man who turnips cries, 
Gry not when his father dies, 
'Tis a proof that he had rather 
Have a turnip than his father." 

And this humour is of the same sort with which 
he answered the friend who commended the fol- 
lowing* line : 

Who rules o'er freemen should him self be free. 

"To be sure (said Dr. Johnson), 

Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'" 

This readiness of finding a parallel, or making 
one, was shown by him perpetually in the 
course of conversation. — When the French ver- 
ses of a certain pantomime were quoted thus, 

Je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux, 

Pour vous faire entendre, mcsdames et messieurs, 

Que je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux ; 

he cried out gaily and suddenly, almost in a 
moment, 

I am Cassandra come down from the sky, 
To tell each by-stander what none can deny, 
That I am Cassandra come down from the sky. 

The pretty Italian verses too, at the end of 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 53 

Baretti's book, called "Easy Phraseology," he 
did aW improviso, in the same manner : 

Viva ! viva la padrona! 
Tutta bell a, e tutta buona, 
La padrona e un angiolella 
Tutta buona e tutta belia ; 
Tutta bella e tutta buona; 
Viva! viva la padrona! 

Long may live my lovely Hetty ! 
Always young and always pretty, 
Always pretty, always young, 
Live my lovely Hetty long ! 
Always young and always pretty; 
Long may live my lovely Hetty ! 

The famous distich too, of an Italian improvi- 
satore, who, when the duke of Modena ran 
away from the comet in the year 1742 or 1743, 

Se al venir vestro i principi sen' vanno 
Deh venga ogni di- — -durate un anno ; 

"which (said he) would do just as well in our 
language thus : 



If at your coming princes disappear, 
Comets ! come every day-»-and stay a year. 



When some one in company commended the 
verses of M. de Benserade a son Lit ; 

Theatre des ris et des pleurs, 
Lit! ou je nais, et ou je meurs, 
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins, 
Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins. 



54* ANECDOTES Ol 

To which he replied without hesitating, 

"In bed we laugh, in bed we cry 3 
And born in bed, in bed we die j 
The near approach a bed may shew 
Of human bliss to human woe." 

The inscription on the collar of sir Joseph 
Banks's goat which had been on two of his ad- 
venturous expeditions with him, and was then, 
by the humanity of her amiable m aster, turned 
out to graze in Kent, as a recompense for her 
utility and faithful service, was given me by 
Johnson in the year 1777, I think, and I have 
never yet seen it printed. 

Perpetui, ambita, bis terra, premia lactis, 
Hsec habet aitrici Capra secunda Jovis. 

The epigram written at lord Anson's house 
many years ago, "where (says Mr. Johnson) I 
was well received and kindly treated, and with 
the true gratitude of a wit ridiculed the master 
of the house before I had left it an hour," has 
been falsely printed in many papers since his 
death. I wrote it down from his own lips one 
evening in August 1772, notneglecting the little 
preface, accusing himself of making so grace- 
less a return for the civilities shewn him. He 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 55 

had, among other elegances about the park and 
gardens, been made to observe a temple to the 
winds, when this thought naturally presented 
itself to a wit. 

Gratum animum laudo ; Qui debuit omnia ventis, 
Quam bene ventorum, surgere templa jubet ! 

A translation of Dryden's epigram too, I used 
to fancy I had to myself. 

Quos laudet vates, Graius, Romanus, et Anglus, 
Tres tria temporibus secla dedere suis : 
Sublime ingenium Graius, — Romanus habebat 
Carmen grande sonans, Anglus utrumque tulit. 
Nil majus natura capit ; clarare priores 
Quae potuere duos, tertius unus habet ; 

from the famous lines written under Milton's 
picture : 

Three poets in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn: 
The first in loftiness of thought surpast, 
The next in majesty ; in both the last. 
The force of nature could no farther go, 
To make a third she join'd the former two. 

One evening in the oratorio season of the 
year 1771, Mr, Johnson went with me to Co- 
vent- Garden theatre; and though he was for 
the most part an exceeding bad playhouse com- 



56 ANECDOTES OF 

panion, as his person drew people's eyes upon 
the box, and the loudness of his voice made it 
difficult for me to hear any body but himself; 
he sat surprisingly quiet, and I flattered myself 
that he was listening to the music. When we 
got home, however, he repeated these verses, 
which he said he had made at the oratorio, and 
he bid me translate them, 

IN THEATRO. 

Tertii verso quater orbe lustri 
Quid theatrales tibi crispe pompas ! 
Quam decet canos male literatos 

Sera vol up tas! 

Tene mulceri fidibus canoris? 
Tene cantorum modulis stupere ? 
Tene per pictas oculo elegante 

Currere formas ? 

Inter equales sine felle liber, 
Codices veri studiosus inter 
Rectius vives, sua quisque carpat 

Qaudia grains, 

Lusibus gaudet puer otiosis. 
Lux us oblectat juvenem theatri, 
At seni fluxo sapienter uti 

Tempore restat. 

I gave him the following lines in imitation, 
which he liked well enough, I think : 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 57 

When threescore years have chill'd thee quite, 

Still can theatric scenes delight? 

Ill suits this place with learned wight, 

May Bates or Coulson cry. 

The scholar's pride can Brent disarm ? 
His heart can soft Guadagni warm? 
Or scenes with sweet delusion charm 

The climacteric eye ? 

The social club, the lonely tower, 
Far better suit thy midnight hour; 
Let each according to bis power 

In worth or wisdom shine ! 

And while play pleases idle boys, 
And wanton mirth fond youth employs, 
To fix the soul, and free from toys, 

That useful task be thine. 



The copy of verses in Latin hexameters, as 
well as I remember, which he wrote to Dr. 
Lawrence, I forgot to keep a copy of; and he 
obliged me to resign his translation of the song 
beginning, Busy, curious, thirsty fly, for him to 
give Mr. Langton, with a promise not to retain 
a copy. I concluded he knew why, so never 
inquired the reason. He had the greatest pos- 
sible value for Mr. Langton, of whose virtue and 
learning he delighted to talk in very exalted 
terms ; and poor Dr. Lawrence had long been 
his friend and confidant. The conversation I 



58 ANECDOTES OE 

saw them hold together in Essex-street one day 
in the year 1781 or 1782, was a melancholy 
one, and made a singular impression on my 
mind. He was himself exceedingly ill, and I 
accompanied him thither for advice. The phy- 
sician was, however, in some respects, more to 
be pitied than the patient : Johnson was pant- 
ing under an asthma and dropsy ; but Lawrence 
had been brought home that very morning 
struck with the palsy, from which he had, two 
hours before we came, strove to awaken himself 
by blisters : they were both deaf, and scarce 
able to speak besides ; one from difficulty of 
breathing, the other from paralytic debility. 
To give and receive medical counsel therefore, 
they fairly sat down on each side a table in the 
doctor's gloomy apartment, adorned with skel- 
etons, preserved monsters, &c. and agreed to 
write Latin billets to each other: such a scene 
did I never see! '■ You (said Johnson) are timidb 
and gelide ;" finding that his friend had pre- 
scribed palliative not drastic remedies. It is 
not me, replies poor Lawrence, in an interrup- 
ted voice ; 'tis nature that is gelide and timidl. 
In fact he lived but few months after I believe, 
and retained his faculties still a shorter time. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 59 

He was a man of strict piety and profound 
learning, but little skilled in the knowledge of 
life or manners, and died without ever having 
enjoyed the reputation he so justly deserved. 

Mr. Johnson's health had been always ex- 
tremely bad since I first knew him, and his 
over-anxious care to retain without blemish the 
perfect sanity of his mind, contributed much to 
disturb it. He had studied medicine diligently 
in all its branches; but had given particular 
attention to the diseases of the imagination, 
which he watched in himself with a solicitude 
destructive of his own peace, and intolerable 
to those he trusted. Dr. Lawrence told him 
one day, that if he would come and beat him 
once a week he would bear it; but to hear his 
complaints was more than man could support. 
9 Twas therefore that he tried, I suppose, and in 
eighteen years contrived, to weary the patience 
of a woman. When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, 
or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant re- 
currence was to the study of arithmetic : and 
one day that he was totally confined to his 
chamber, and I inquired what he had been do- 
ing to divert himself; he shewed me a calcula- 
tion which I could scarce be made to under- 



t)0 ANECDOTES OF 

stand, so vast was the plan of it, and so very- 
intricate were the figures : no other indeed than 
that the national debt, computing it at one hun- 
dred, and eighty millions sterling, would, if con- 
verted into silver, serve to make a meridian of 
that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of 
the whole earth, the real globe. On a similar 
occasion I asked him (knowing what subject he 
would like best to talk upon), how his opinion 
stood towards the question between Paschal 
and Soame Jennings about number and nume- 
ration? as the French philosopher observes that 
infinity, though on all sides astonishing, appears 
most so when the idea is connected with the 
idea of number; for the notions of infinite 
number, and infinite number we know there is, 
stretches one's capacity still more than the idea 
of infinite space : <tk Such a notion indeed (adds 
he) can scarcely find room in the human mind." 
Our English author on the other hand exclaims, 
Let no man give himself leave to talk about in- 
finite number, for infinite number is a contra- 
diction in terms ; whatever is once numbered 
we all see cannot be infinite. "I think (said 
Mr. Johnson after a pause) we must settle the 
matter thus: numeration is certainly infinite^ 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 6l 

for eternity might be employed in adding unit 
t&unit; but every number is in itself finite as the 
possibility of doubling it easily proves : besides, 
stop at what point you will, you find yourself as 
far from infinitude as ever." These passages I 
wrote down as soon as I had heard them, and 
repent that I did not take the same method 
with a dissertation he made one other day that 
he was very ill, concerning the peculiar pro- 
perties of the number Sixteen, which I after- 
ward tried, but in vain, to make him repeat. 

As ethics or figures, or metaphysical reason- 
ing, was the sort of talk he most delighted in, so 
no kind of conversation pleased him less I think, 
than when the subject was historical fact or ge- 
neral polity. "What shall we learn from that 
stuff (said he) ? let us not fancy like Swift that 
we are exalting a woman's character by telling 
how she 

Could name the ancient heroes round, 
Explain for what they were renown'd, &c." 

I must not however lead my readers to suppose 
that he meant to reserve such talk for men's 
company as a proof of pre-eminence. "He 
never (as he expressed it) desired to hear of the 



6 C 2 ANECDOTES OF 

Punic war while he lived : such conversation 
was lost time (he said), and carried one away 
from common life, leaving no ideas behind 
which could serve living wight as warning or 
direction. 

How I should act is not the case, 
But how would Brutus in my place? 

And now (cries Mr. Johnson, laughing with ob- 
streperous violence) if these two foolish lines 
can be equalled in folly, except by the two suc- 
ceeding ones — shew them me." 

I asked him once concerning the conversa- 
tion powers of a gentleman with whom I was 
myself unacquainted — " He talked to me at club 
one day (replies our doctor) concerning Cati- 
line's conspiracy — so I withdrew my attention, 
and thought about Tom Thumb." 

Modern politics fared no better. I was one 
time extolling the character of a statesman and 
expatiating on the skill required to direct the 
different currents, reconcile the jarring inte- 
rests, &c. " Thus (replies he) a mill is a com- 
plicated piece of mechanism enough, but the 
water is no part of the workmanship." — On 
another occasion, when some one lamented the 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, 63 

Weakness of a then present minister, and com- 
plained that he was dull and tardy, and knew 
little of affairs, — " You may as well complain, 
sir (says Johnson), that the accounts of time 
are kept by the clock; for he certainly does 
stand still upon the stair-head — and we all 
know that he is no great chronologer." — In 
the year 1777, or thereabouts, when all the talk 
was of an invasion, he said most pathetically 
one afternoon, "Alas! alas! how this unmean- 
ing stuff spoils all my comfort in my friends' 
convocation ! Will the people never have done 
with it; and shall I never hear a sentence again 
without the French in it ? Here is no invasion 
coming, and you know there is none. Let the 
vexatious and frivolous talk alone, or suffer it 
at least to teach you one truth; and learn by 
this perpetual echo of even unapprehended 
distress, how historians magnify events expec- 
ted, or calamities endured; when you know 
they are at this very moment collecting all the 
big* words they can find, in which to describe a 
consternation never felt, for a misfortune which 
never happened. Among all your lamentations, 
who eats the less ? Who sleeps the worse, for one 
general's ill success, or another's capitulation? 



64 ANECDOTES OF 

Oh, pray let us hear no more of it! " — No man 
however was more zealously attached to his 
party; he not only loved a Tory himself, but 
he loved a man the better if he heard he hated 
a Whig. "Dear Bathurst (said he. to me one 
day) was a man to my very heart's content : 
he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he 
hated a Whig : he was a very good hater ^ 

Some one mentioned a gentleman of that 
party for having behaved oddly on an occasion 
where faction was not concerned : — "Is he not 
a citizen of London, a native of North America, 
and a Whig? (says Johnson.) — Let him be ab- 
surd, 1 beg of you : when a monkey is too like 
a man, it shocks one." 

Severity towards the poor was, in Dr. John- 
son's opinion (as is visible in his Life of Addis- 
on particularly) an undoubted and constant 
attendant or consequence upon Whiggism ; and 
he was not contented with giving them relief, 
he wished to add also indulgence. He loved 
the poor as 1 never yet saw any one else do, 
with an earnest desire to make them happy. — 
What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence 
to common beggars ? they only lay it out in gin 
or tobacco. Cl And why should they be denied 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 65 

such sweeteners of their existence ? (says John- 
son :) it is surely very savage to refuse them every 
possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse 
for our own acceptance . Life is a pill which none 
of us can bear to swallow without gilding ; yet 
for the poor we delight in stripping it still ba- 
rer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible 
displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from 
their mouths." In consequence of these prin- 
ciples he nursed whole nests of people in his 
house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and 
the sorrowful, found a sure retreat from all the 
evils whence his little income could secure them : 
and commonly spending the middle of the week 
at our house, he kept his numerous family in 
Fleet-street upon a settled allowance ; but re- 
turned to them every Saturday, to give them 
three good dinners, and his company, before he 

came back to us on the Monday night 

treating them with the same, or perhaps more 
ceremonious civility, than he would have done 

by as many people of fashion making the 

Holy Scripture thus the rule of his conduct, 
and only expecting salvation as he was able to 
obey its precepts. 

While Dr. Johnson possessed however the 



66 ANECDOTES OF 

strongest compassion for poverty or illness, he 
did not even pretend to feel for those who la- 
mented the loss of a child, a parent, or a friend. 

M These are the distresses of sentiment (he 

would reply), which a man who is really to 
be pitied has no leisure to feel. The sight of 
people who want food and raiment is so com- 
mon in great cities, that a surly fellow like me 
has no compassion to spare for wounds given 
only to vanity or softness." No man, therefore, 
who smarted from the ingratitude of his friends, 
found any sympathy from our philosopher : "Let 
him do good on higher motives next time," 
would be the answer; "he will then be sure 
of his reward." — —It is easy to observe, that 
the justice of such sentences made them offen- 
sive ; but we must be careful how we condemn 
a man for saying what we know to be true, only 
because it is so. I hope that the reason our 
hearts rebelled a little against his severity, was 
chiefly because it came from a living mouth. — 
Books were invented to take off the odium of 
immediate superiority, and soften the rigour of 
duties prescribed by the teachers and censors 
of human-kind — setting at least those who are 
acknowledged wiser than ourselves at a distance. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 6j 

When we recollect, however, that for this very 
reason they are seldom consulted and little obey- 
ed, how much cause shall his contemporaries 
have to rejoice that their living Johnson forced 
them to feel the reproofs due to vice and folly — 
while Seneca and Tillotson were no longer able 

to make impression except on our shelves ? 

Few things indeed which pass well enough 
with others would do with him : he had been a 
great reader of Mandeville, and was ever on 
the watch to spy out those stains of original 
corruption, so easily discovered by a penetra- 
ting observer even in the purest minds. I 
mentioned an event, which if it had happened 
would greatly have injured Mr. Thrale and his 

family and then, dear sir, said I, how sorry 

you would have been ! " I hope (replied he af- 
ter a long pause) — I should have been very 
sorry ; — but remember Rochefoucault's max- 
im." 1 would rather (answered I) remem- 
ber Prior's verses, and ask, 

- What need of books these truths to tell, 
Which folks perceive that cannot spell ? 
And must we spectacles apply, 
To see what hurts our naked eye ? 

Will any body's mind bear this eternal micro- 

F 2 



68 ANECDOTES OF 

scope that you place upon your own so? "1 
never (replied he) saw one that would, except 
that of my dear miss Reynolds — and hers is 

very near to purity itself."-- Of slighter evils, 

and friends more distant than our own house- 
hold, he spoke less cautiously. An acquaint- 
ance lost the almost certain hope of a good 
estate that had been long expected. Such a 
one will grieve (said I) at her friend's disap- 
pointment. " She will suffer as much perhaps 
(said he) as your horse did when your cow 
miscarried." I professed myself sincerely 
grieved when accumulated distresses crushed 
sir George Colebrook's family ; and I was 
so. " Your own prosperity (said he) may 
possibly have so far increased the natural ten- 
derness of your heart, that for aught I know 
you may be a little sorry ; but it is sufficient 
for a plain man if he does not laugh when he 
sees a fine new house tumble down all on a 
sudden, and a snug cottage stand by ready to 
receive the owner, whose birth entitled him to 
nothing better* and whose limbs are left him 
to go to work again with." 

I used to tell him in jest, that his morality 
was easily contented ; and when I have said 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 6Q 

something as if the wickedness of the world 
gave me concern, he would cry out aloud 
against canting, and protest that he thought 
there was very little gross wickedness in the 
world, and still less of extraordinary virtue. 
Nothing indeed more surely disgusted Dr. 
Johnson than hyperbole : he loved not to be 
told of sallies of excellence, which he said were 
seldom valuable, and seldom true. " Heroic 
virtues (said he) are the bon mots of life ; they 
do not appear often, and when they do appear 
are too much prized I think ; like the aloe-tree, 
which shoots and flowers once in a hundred 
years. But life is made up of little things ; 
and that character is the best which does little 
but repeated acts of beneficence : as that con- 
versation is the best which consists in elegant 
and pleasing thoughts expressed in natural and 
pleasing terms. With regard to my own no- 
tions of moral virtue (continued he), I hope I 
have not lost my sensibility of wrong ; but I 
hope likewise that I have lived long enough in 
the world, to prevent me from expecting to 
find any action of which both the original mo- 
tive and all the parts were good." 

The piety of Dr. Johnson was exemplary 



70 ANECDOTES OF 

and edifying ; he was punctiliously exact to 
perform every public duty enjoined by the 
church, and his spirit of devotion had an ener- 
gy that affected all who ever saw him pray in 
private. The coldest and most languid hearers 
of the word must have felt themselves animated 
by his manner of reading the Holy Scriptures; 
and to pray by his sick bed, required strength 
of body as well as of mind, so vehement were 
his manners, and his tones of voice so pathetic, 
I have many times made it my request to Hea- 
ven that I might be spared the sight of his 
death ; and I was spared it ! 

Mr. Johnson, though in general a gross feed- 
er, kept fast in Lent, particularly the holy 
week, with a rigour very dangerous to his ge- 
neral health ; but though he had left off wine 
(for religious motives as I always believed, 
though he did not own it), yet he did not hold 
the commutation of offences by voluntary pe- 
nance, or encourage others to practise severity 
upon themselves. He even once said, "that 
he thought it an error to endeavour at pleasing- 
God by taking the rod of reproof out of his 
hands." And when we talked of convents, and 
the hardships suffered in them — "Remember 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 71 

always (said he) that a convent is an idle place, 
and where there is nothing to be done some- 
thing must be endured: mustard has a bad 
taste per se you may observe, but very insipid 
food cannot be eaten without it." 

His respect however for places of religious 
retirement was carried to the greatest degree 
of earthly veneration: the Benedictine convent 
at Paris paid him all possible honours in re- 
turn, and the prior and he parted with tears of 
tenderness. Two of that college being sent to 
England on the mission some years after, spent 
much of their time with him at Bolt- court I 
know, and he was ever earnest to retain their 
friendship ; but though beloved by all his Ro- 
man-Catholic acquaintance, particularly Dr. 
Nugent, for whose esteem he had a singular 
value, yet was Mr. Johnson a most unshaken 
church-of-England man ; and I think, or at 
least I once did think, that a letter written by 
him to Mr. Barnard the king's librarian, when 
he was in Italy collecting books, contained 
some very particular advice to his friend to be 
on his guard against the seductions of the 
church of Rome. 

The settled aversion Dr. Johnson felt towards 



72 ANECDOTES OF 

an infidel he expressed to all ranks, and at all 
times, without the smallest reserve ; for though 
on common occasions he paid great deference 
to birth or title, yet his regard for truth and 
virtue never gave way to meaner considera- 
tions. We talked of a dead wit one evening, 
and somebody praised him— " Let us never 
praise talents so ill employed, sir; we foul our 
mouths by commending such infidels," said he. 
Allow him the lumieres at least, entreated one 
of the company — "I do allow him, sir (replied 
Johnson), just enough to light him to hell." 
Of a Jamaica gentleman, then lately dead-^- 
<f He will not, whither he is now gone (said 
Johnson), find much difference, I believe, ei- 
ther in the climate or the company." The 

abbe Reynal probably remembers that, being 
at the house of a common friend in London, the 
master of it approached Johnson with that gen- 
tleman so much celebrated in his hand, and 
this speech in his mouth : Will you permit me, 
sir, to present to you the abbe Reynal? "No 
sir,'" replied the Doctor very loud, and sudden- 
ly turned away from them. 

Though Mr. Johnson had but little reve- 
rence either for talents or fortune, when he 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 73 

found them unsupported by virtue ; yet it was 
sufficient to tell him a man was very pious, or 
very charitable, and he would at least begin with 
him on good terms, however the conversation 
might end. He would, sometimes too, good- 
naturedly enter into a long chat for the instruc - 
tion or entertainment of people he despised. 
I perfectly recollect his condescending to de- 
light my daughter's dancing-master with a long 
argument about his art; which the man pro- 
tested, at the close of the discourse, the Doc- 
tor knew more of than himself; who remained 
astonished, enlightened, and amused, by the 
talk of a person little likely to make a good 
disquisition upon dancing. I have sometimes 
indeed been rather pleased than vexed when 
Mr. Johnson has given a rough answer to a 
man who perhaps deserved one only half as 
rough, because I knew he would repent of his 
hasty reproof, and make us all amends by some 
conversation at once instructive and entertain- 
ing, as in the following cases : A young fellow 
asked him abruptly one day, Pray, sir, what 
and where is Palmyra? I heard somebody talk 
last night of the ruins of Palmyra. " Tis a hill 
in Ireland (replies Johnson), with palms grow- 



74 ANECDOTES OF 

ing on the top, and a bog at the bottom, and so 
they call it Balm-mira" Seeing however that 
the lad thought him serious, and thanked him 
for the information, he undeceived him very 
gently indeed ; told him the history, geography, 
and chronology, of Tadmor in the wilderness, 
with every incident that literature could fur- 
nish I think, or eloquence express, from the 
building of Solomon's palace to the voyage of 
Dawkins and Wood. 

On another occasion, when he was musing 
over the fire in our drawing room at Streatham, 
a young gentleman called to him suddenly, 
and I suppose he thought disrespectfully, in 
these words : Mr. Johnson, would you advise 
me to marry? " I would advise no man to mar- 
ry, sir (returns for answer in a very angry tone 
Dr. Johnson), who is not likely to propagate 
understanding;" and so left the room. Our 
companion looked confounded, and I believe 
had scarce recovered the consciousness of his 
own existence, when Johnson came back, and 
drawing his chair among us, with altered looks 
and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, 
insensibly led the conversation to the subject 
of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dis- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 75 

sertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on 
the true knowledge of human life, and so adorn- 
ed with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever 
recollected the offence, except to rejoice in its 
consequences. He repented just as certainly 
however, if he had been led to praise any per- 
son or thing by accident more than he thought 
it deserved ; and was on such occasions comi- 
cally earnest to destroy the praise or pleasure 
he had unintentionally given. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some picture 
as excellent. " It has often grieved me, sir 
(said Mr. Johnson), to see so much mind as the 
science of painting requires, laid out upon such 
perishable materials : why do not you oftener 
make use of copper ? I could wish your su- 
periority in the art you profess, to be preserved 
in stuff more durable than canvas." Sir Joshua 
urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large 
enough for historical subjects, and was going 
to raise farther observations : " What foppish 
obstacles are these ! (exclaims on a sudden Dr. 
Johnson :) here is Thrale has a thousand tun of 
copper ; you may paint it all round if you will, 
I suppose ; it will serve him to brew in after- 
ward : will it not, sir ?" to my husband who 



76 ANECDOTES OF 

sat by. Indeed Dr. Johnson's utter scorn of 
painting was such, that I have heard him say, 
that he should sit very quietly in a room hung 
round with the works of the greatest masters, 
and never feel the slightest disposition to turn 
them if their backs were outermost, unless it 
might be for the sake of telling sir Joshua that 
he had turned them. Such speeches may ap- 
pear offensive to many, but those who knew 
he was too blind to discern the perfections of 
an art which ^applies itself immediately to our 
eye-sight, must acknowledge he was not in the 
wrong. 

He delighted no more in music than paint- 
ing ; he was almost as deaf as he was blind ; 
travelling with Dr. Johnson was for these rea-- 
sons tiresome enough. Mr. Thrale loved pros^ 
pects, and was mortified that his friend could 
not enjoy the sight of those different disposi^ 
tions of wood and water, hill and valley, that 
travelling through England and France affords 
a man. But when he wished to point them 
out to his companion : "Never heed such non- 
sense," would be the reply : "a blade of grass 
is always a blade of glass, whether in one 
country or another ; let us if we do talk, talk 



BR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 77 

about something ; men and women are my 
subjects of enquiry; let us see how these differ 
from those we have left behind." 

When we were at Rouen together, he took 
a great fancy to the abbe RorTette, with whom 
he conversed about the destruction of the order 
of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow 
to the general power of the church, and likely 
to be followed with many and dangerous inno- 
vations, which might at length become fatal to 
religion itself, and shake even the foundation 
of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to 
wonder and delight in his conversation : the 
talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluent- 
ly, and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulo- 
logium upon Milton with so much ardour, 
eloquence, and ingenuity, that the abbe* rose 
from his seat and embraced him. My husband 
seeing them apparently so charmed with the 
company of each other, politely invited the 
abbe* to England, intending to oblige his friend ; 
who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him se- 
verely before the man, for such a sudden burst 
of tenderness towards a person he could know 
nothing at all of ; and thus put a sudden finish 
to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment, 
from the company of the abbe* RofFette. 



78 ANECDOTES OF 

When at Versailles the people shewed us the 
theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at 
some machinery for playhouse purposes : Now 
we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson, 
— The Englishman at Paris? "No, no (re- 
plied he), we will try to act Harry the Fifth. " 
His dislike of the French was well known to 
both nations, I believe ; but he applauded the 
number of their books and the graces of their 
style. " They have few sentiments (said he), 
but they express them neatly ; they have little 
meat too, but they dress it well." Johnson's 
own notions about eating however were no- 
thing less than delicate ; a leg of pork boiled 
till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with 
plumbs and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt 
buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties : 
with regard to drink, his liking was for the 
strongest, as it was not the flavour, but the ef- 
fect he sought for, and professed to desire ; 
and when I first knew him, he used to pour 
capillaire into his Port wine. For the last 
twelve years however, he left off all fermented 
liquors. To make himself some amends in- 
deed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring 
in large quantities of cream, or even melted 
butter ; and was so fond of fruit, that though 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 79 

he usually eat seven or eight large peaches of 
a morning before breakfast began, and treated 
them with proportionate attention after dinner 
again, yet I have heard him protest, that he 
never had quite as much as he wished of wall- 
fruit, except once in his life, and that was when 
we were all together at Ombersley, the seat of 
my lord Sandys. I was saying to a friend one 
day, that I did not like goose ; one smells it so 
while it is roasting, said I. " But you, Madam, 
(replies the Doctor), have been at all times a 
fortunate woman, having always had your hun- 
ger so forestalled by indulgence, that you never 
experienced the delight of smelling your din- 
ner beforehand." Which pleasure, answered 
I, pertly, is to be enjoyed in perfection by such 
as have the happiness to pass through Porridge- 
Island* of a morning. "Come, come (says he 
gravely), let's have no sneering at what is se- 
rious to so many : hundreds of your fellow- 
creatures, dear lady, turn another way, that 
they may not be tempted by the luxuries of 



* Porridge-Island is a mean street in London, filled with cook-shops 
for the convenience of the poorer inhabitants ; the real name of it I 
know not, but suspect that it is generally known by, to have been ori- 
ginally a term of derision. 



mmmmmmmmm 



80 ANECDOTES OF 

Porridge-Island to wish for gratifications they 
are not able to obtain : you are certainly not 
better than all of them ; give God thanks that 
you are happier." 

I received on another occasion as just a re- 
buke from Mr. Johnson, for an offence of the 
same nature, and hope I took care never to 
provoke a third ; for after a very long summer 
particularly hot and dry, I was wishing natu- 
rally, but thoughtlessly, for some rain to lay 
the dust as we drove along the Surry roads. 
" I cannot bear (replied he, with much asperity 
and an altered look), when I know how many 
poor families will perish next winter for want 
of that bread which the present drought will 
deny them, to hear ladies sighing for rain, only 
that their complexions may not suffer from the 
heat, or their clothes be incommoded by the 
dust: — for shame! leave off such foppish la- 
mentations, and study to relieve those whose 
distresses are real." 

With advising others to be charitable how- 
ever, Dr. Johnson did not content himself* He 
gave away all he had, and all he ever had got- 
ten, except the two thousand pounds he left 
behind ; and the very small portion of his in- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 81 

eome which he spent on himself, with all our 
calculation, we never could make more than 
seventy, or at most fourscore pounds a year, 
and he pretended to allow himself a hundred* 
He had numberless dependants out of doors as 
well as in, " who, as he expressed it, did not 
like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em 
money." For those people he used frequently 
to raise contributions on his richer friends ; 
" and this (says he) is one of the thousand 
reasons which ought to restrain a man from 
drony solitude and useless retirement. Soli- 
tude (added he one day) is dangerous to reason, 
without being favourable to virtue ; pleasures 
of some sort are necessary to the intellectual 
as to the corporeal health ; and those who re- 
sist gaiety, will be likely for the most part to 
fall a sacrifice to appetite ; for the solicitations 
of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a 
vacant and solitary person is a speedy and se- 
ducing relief. Remember (continued he) that 
the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, pro- 
bably superstitious, and possibly mad : the 
mind stagnates for want of employment, grows 
morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in 
foul air." It was on this principle that John- 

G 



82 ANECDOTES OF 

son encouraged parents to carry their daugh- 
ters early and much into company : "for what 
harm can be done before so many witnesses ? 
Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient pas- 
sions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or 
tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor 
leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink 
into her heart. The ball, the show, are not 
the dangerous places : no, 'tis the private 
friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the 
easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her 
opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose con- 
versation can just soothe, without ever stretch- 
ing her mind, that is the lover to be feared : 
he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the 
opera, must be contented to buzz in vain." 
These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, 
that I have heard him say, "If you would shut 
up any man with any woman, so as to make 
them derive their whole pleasure from each 
other, they would inevitably fall in love as it is 
called, with each other ; but at six months' end 
if you would throw them both into public life 
where they might change partners at pleasure, 
each would soon forget that fondness which 
mutual dependance, and the paucity of general 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON*. 83 

amusement alone, had caused, and each would 
separately feel delighted by their release." 

In these opinions Rousseau apparently con- 
curs with him exactly ; and Mr. Whitehead's 
poem called Variety, is written solely to eluci- 
date this simple proposition. Prior likewise 
advises the husband to send his wife abroad, 
and let her see the world as it really stands 

Powder, and pocket-glass, and beau. 

Mr. Johnson was indeed unjustly supposed 
to be a lover of singularity. Few people had 
a more settled reverence for the world than he, 
or was less captivated by new modes of beha- 
viour introduced, or innovations on the long- 
received customs of common life. He hated 
the way of leaving a company without taking 
notice to the lady of the house that he was go- 
ing ; and did not much like any of the contri- 
vances by which ease has been lately introdu- 
ced into society instead of ceremony, which 
had more of his approbation. Cards, dress, 
and dancing, however, all found their advo- 
cates in Dr. Johnson, who inculcated, upon 
principle, the cultivation of those arts, which 
many a moralist thinks himself bound to reject, 
g 3 



84 ANECDOTES OF 

and many a Christian holds unfit to be practi- 
sed. " No person (said he one day) goes 
under-dressed till he thinks himself of conse- 
quence enough to forbear carrying the badge 
of his rank upon his back." And in answer to 
the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, &c. 
against showy decorations of the human figure, 
I once heard him exclaim, *' Oh, let us not be 
found when our Master calls us, ripping the 
lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of con- 
tention from our souls and tongues ! Let us all 
conform in outward customs, which are of no 
consequence, to the manners of those whom 
we live among, and despise such paltry dis- 
tinctions. Alas, sir (continued he), a man who 
cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not 
find his way thither the sooner in a grey one." 
On an occasion of less consequence, when he 
turned his back on lord Bolinbroke in the 
rooms at Brighthelmstone, he made this ex- 
cuse : "lam not obliged, sir (said he to Mr. 
Thrale, who stood fretting), to find reasons for 
respecting the rank of him who will not con- 
descend to declare it by his dress or some other 
visible mark : what are stars and other signs 
of superiority made for ?" 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 85 

The next evening however he made us co- 
mical amends, by sitting by the same nobleman, 
and haranguing very loudly about the nature, 
and use, and abuse, of divorces. Many people 
gathered round them to hear what was said, 
and when my husband called him away, and 
told him to whom he had been talking — recei- 
ved an answer which I will not write down. 

Though no man perhaps made such rough 
replies as Dr. Johnson, yet nobody had a more 
just aversion for general satire ; he always ha- 
ted and censured Swift for his unprovoked bit- 
terness against the professors of medicine; and 
used to challenge his friends, when they la- 
mented the exorbitancy of physicians' fees, to 
produce him one instance of an estate raised 
by physic in England. When an acquaintance 
too was one day exclaiming against the tedi- 
ousness of the law and its partiality ; " Let us 
hear, sir (said Johnson), no general abuse ; the 
law is the last result of human wisdom acting 
upon human experience for the benefit of the 
public." 

As the mind of Dr. Johnson was greatly ex- 
panded, so his first care was for general, not 
particular or petty morality ; and those teach- 



86 ANECDOTES OF 

ers had more of his blame than praise, I think, 
who seek to oppress life with unnecessary 
scruples : Scruples would (as he observed) 
certainly make men miserable, and seldom 
make them good. Let us ever (he said) studi- 
ously fly from those instructors, against whom 
our Saviour denounces heavy judgements, for 
having bound up burdens grievous to be borne, 
and laid them on the shoulders of mortal men." 
No one had however higher notions of the hard 
task of true Christianity than Johnson, whose 
daily terror lest he had not done enough, ori- 
ginated in piety, but ended in little less than 
disease. Reasonable with regard to others, 
he had formed vain hopes of performing im- 
possibilities himself; and finding his good 
works ever below his desires and intent, filled 
his imagination with fears that he should never 
obtain forgiveness for omissions of duty and 
criminal waste of time. These ideas kept him 
in constant anxiety concerning his salvation; 
and the vehement petitions he perpetually 
made for a longer continuance on earth, were 
doubtless the cause of his so -prolonged exis- 
tence ; for when I carried Dr. Pepys to him in 
the year 1782, it appeared wholly impossible 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 87 

for any skill of the physician or any strength of 
the patient to save him. He was saved that 
time however by sir Lucas's prescription ; and 
less skill on one side, or less strength on the 
other, I am morally certain, would not have 
been enough. He had however possessed an 
athletic constitution, as he said the man who 
dipped people in the sea at Brighthelmstone 
acknowledged ; for seeing Mr. Johnson swim in 
the year 1766, Why, sir (says the dipper), you 
must have been a stout-hearted gentleman 
forty years ago. 

Mr. Thrale and he used to laugh about that 
story very often: but Garrick told a better, for 
he said that in their young days, when some 
strolling players came to Litchfield, our friend 
had fixed his place upon the stage, and got 
himself a chair accordingly ; which leaving for 
a few minutes, he found a man in it at his re- 
turn, who refused to give it back at the first 
entreaty : Mr. Johnson however, who did not 
think it worth his while to make a second, took 
chair and man altogether, and threw them all 
at once into the pit. I asked the Doctor if this 
was a fact? " Garrick has not spoiled it in the 
telling (said he), it is very near true to be sure." 



88 ANECDOTES OF 

Mr. Beauclerc too related one day, how on 
some occasion he ordered two large mastiffs in- 
to his parlour, to shew a friend who was con- 
versant in canine beauty and excellence, how 
the dogs quarrelled, and fastened on each other, 
alarmed all the company, except Johnson, who 
seizing one in one hand by the cuff of the neck, 
the other in the other hand, said gravely, 
"Come, gentlemen ! where is your difficulty } 
put one dog out at the door, and I will shew 
this fierce gentleman the way out of the win- 
dow :" which, lifting up the mastiff and the 
sash, he contrived to do very expeditiously, 
and much to the satisfaction of the affrighted 
company. We inquired as to the truth of this 
curious recital. "The dogs have been some- 
what magnified, I believe, sir (was the reply) : 
they were, as I remember, two stout young 
pointers ; but the story has gained but little." 

One reason why Mr. Johnson's memory was 
so particularly exact, might be derived from 
his rigid attention to veracity ; being always 
resolved to relate every fact as it stood, he 
looked even on the smaller parts of life with 
minute attention, and remembered such passa- 
ges as escape cursory and common observers, 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 89 

" A story (says he) is a specimen of human 
manners, and derives its sole value from its 
truth. When Foote has told me something, I 
dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow ; 
when Reynolds tells me something, I consider 
myself as possessed of an idea the more." 

Mr. Johnson liked a frolic or a jest well 
enough; though he had strange serious rules 
about it too : and very angry was he if any bo- 
dy offered to be merry when he was disposed 
to be grave. "You have an ill-founded notion 
(said he) that it is clever to turn matters off 
with a joke, as the phrase is; whereas nothing 
produces enmity so certain, as one person's 
shewing a disposition to be merry when an- 
other is inclined to be either serious or dis- 
pleased." 

One may gather from this how he felt, when 
his Irish friend Grierson, hearing him enume- 
rate the qualities necessary to the formation of 
a poet, began a comical parody upon his orna- 
mented harangue in praise of a cook, concluding 
with this observation, that he who dressed a 
good dinner was a more excellent and more 
useful member of society than he who wrote a 
good poem, " And in this opinion (said Mr. 



90 ANECDOTES OF 

Johnson in reply) all the dogs in the town will 
join you." 

Of this Mr. Grierson I have heard him relate 
many droll stories, much to his advantage as a 
wit, together with some facts more difficult to 
be accounted for; as avarice never was reck- 
oned among the vices of the laughing world. 
But Johnson's various life, and spirit of vigi- 
lance to learn and treasure up every peculiarity 
of manner, sentiment, or general conduct, made 
his company, when he chose to relate anecdotes 
of people he had formerly known, exquisitely 
amusing and comical. It is indeed inconceiv- 
able what strange occurrences he had seen, 
and what surprising things he could tell when 
in a communicative humour. It is by no means 
my business to relate memoirs of his acquaint; 
ance ; but it will serve to shew the character 
of Johnson himself, when I inform those who 
never knew him, that no man told a story with 
so good a grace, or knew so well what would 
make an effect upon his auditors. When he 
raised contributions for some distressed author, 
or wit in want, he often made us all more than 
amends by diverting descriptions of the lives 
they were then passing in corners unseen by 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON". 91 

any body but himself; and that odd old sur- 
geon whom he kept in his house to tend the 
out-pensioners, and of whom he said most truly 
and sublimely, that 

In misery's darkest caverns known, 

His useful care was ever nigh, 
Where hopeless anguish pours her groan, 

And lonely want retires to die. 

I have forgotten the year, but it could scarce- 
ly I think be later than 1765 — 6, that he was 
called abruptly from our house after dinner, 
and returning in about three hours, said, he 
had been with an enraged author, whose land- 
lady pressed him for payment within doors, 
while the bailiffs beset him without ; that he 
was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to 
drown care, and fretting over a novel which 
when finished was to be his whole fortune ; 
but he could not get it done for distraction, 
nor could he step out of doors to offer it to 
sale. Mr. Johnson therefore sent away the 
bottle, and went to the bookseller, recom- 
mending the performance, and desiring some 
immediate relief; which when he brought back 
to the writer, he called the woman of the house 
directly to partake of punch, and pass their 
time in merriment. 



92 ANECDOTES OE 

It was not till ten years after, I dare say, 
that something in Dr. Goldsmith's behaviour 
struck me with an idea that he was the very 
man, and then Johnson confessed that he was 
so ; the novel was the charming Vicar of 
Wakefield. 

There was a Mr. Boyce too, who wrote some 
very elegant verses printed in the Magazines 
of five-and-twenty years ago, of whose inge- 
nuity and distress I have heard Dr. Johnson 
tell some curious anecdotes ; particularly, that 
when he was almost perishing with hunger, and 
some money was produced to purchase him a 
dinner, he got a bit of roast beef, but could 
not eat it without ketchup, and laid out the 
last half-guinea he possessed in truffles and 
mushrooms, eating them in bed too, for want 
of clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in. 

Another man for whom he often begged, 
made as wild use of his friend's beneficence as 
these, spending in punch the solitary guinea 
which had been brought him one morning ; 
when resolving to add another claimant to a 
share of the bowl, besides a woman who al- 
ways lived with him, and a footman who used 
to carry out petitions for charity, he borrowed 
a chairman's watch, and pawning it for half a 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 93 

crown, paid a clergyman to marry him to a 
fellow-lodger in the wretched house they all 
inhabited, and got so drunk over the guinea 
bowl of punch, the evening of his wedding- 
day, that having many years lost the use of 
one leg, he now contrived to fall from the top 
of the stairs to the bottom, and break his arm, 
in which condition his companions left him to 
call Mr. Johnson, who relating the series of 
his tragi-comical distresses, obtained from the 
Literary Club a seasonable relief. 

Of that respectable society I have heard 
him speak in the highest terms, and with a 
magnificent panegyric on each member, when 
it consisted only of a dozen or fourteen friends ; 
but as soon as the necessity of enlarging it 
brought in new faces, and took off from his 
confidence in the company, he grew less fond 
of the meeting, and loudly proclaimed his 
carelessness who might be admitted, when it 
was become a mere dinner-club. I think the 
original names, when I first : heard him talk 
with fervour of every member's peculiar pow- 
ers of instructing or delighting mankind, were 
sir John Hawkins, Mr. Burke, Mr. Langton, 
Mr. Beauclerc, Dr. Percy, Dr. Nugent, Dr. 



94 ANECDOTES OF 

Goldsmith, sir Robert Chambers, Mr. Dyer, 
and sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he called 
their Romulus, or said somebody else of the 
company called him so, which was more like- 
ly : but this was, I believe, in the year 1775 
or 1776. It was a supper-meeting then, and 
I fancy Dr. Nugent ordeied an omelet some- 
times on a Friday or Saturday night ; for I 
remember Mr. Johnson felt very painful sensa- 
tions at the sight of that dish soon after his 
iteath, and cried, Ci Ah, my poor dear friend ! 
I shall never eat omelet with thee again!" quite 
in an agony. The truth is, nobody suffered 
more from pungent sorrow at a friend's death 
than Johnson, though he would suffer no one 
else to complain of their losses in the same 
way ; "for (says he) we must either outlive 
our friends you know, or our friends must out- 
live us : and I see no man that would hesitate 
about the choice." 

Mr. Johnson loved late hours extremely, or 
more properly hated early ones. Nothing was 
more terrifying to him than the idea of retiring 
to bed, which he never would call going to 
rest, or suffer another to call so. "I lie down 
(said he) that my acquaintance may sleep ; 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 95 

but I lie down to endure oppressive misery, 
and soon rise again to pass the night in anxiety 
and pain." By this pathetic manner, which 
no one ever possessed in so eminent a degree, 
he used to shock me from quitting his company, 
till I hurt my own health not a little by sitting 
up with him when I was myself far from well : 
nor was it an easy matter to oblige him even 
by compliance, for he always maintained that 
no one forbore their own gratifications for the 
sake of pleasing another, and if one did sit up 
it was probably to amuse one's self. Some 
right however he certainly had to say so, as he 
made his company exceedingly entertaining 
when he had once forced one, by his vehement 
lamentations and piercing reproofs, not to quit 
the room, but to sit quietly and make tea for 
him, as I often did in London till four o'clock 
in the morning. At Streatham indeed I mana- 
ged better, having always some friend who was 
kind enough to engage him in talk, and favour 
my retreat. 

The first time I ever saw this extraordinary 
man was in the year 1764, when Mr. Murphy, 
who had long been the friend and confidential 
intimate of Mr. Thrale, persuaded him to wish 



96 



ANECDOTES OF 



for Johnson's conversation, extolling it in ternw 
which that of no other person could have de- 
served, till we were only in doubt how to obtain 
his company, and find an excuse for the invi- 
tation. The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse, a 
shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the 
subject of common discourse, soon afforded a 
pretence, and Mr. Murphy brought Johnson to 
meet him, giving me general caution not to be 
surprized at his figure, dress, or behaviour. 
What I recollect best of the day's talk, was 
his earnestly recommending Addison's works 
to Mr, Woodhouse as a model for imitation. 
"Give nights and days, sir v said he) to the stu- 
dy of Addison, if you mean either to be a good 
writer, or, what is more worth, an honest 
man." When I saw something like the same 
expression in his criticism on that author, 
lately published, I put him in mind of his past 
injunctions to the young poet, to which he re- 
plied, "that he wished the shoemaker mght 
have remembered them as well." Mr. John- 
son liked his new acquaintance so much how- 
ever, that from that time he dined with us 
every Thursday through the winter, and in tlie 
autumn of the next year he followed us to 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 97 

Brighthelmstone, whence we were gone before 
his arrival ; so he was disappointed and enra- 
ged, and wrote us a letter expressive of anger, 
which we were very desirous to pacify, and to 
obtain his company again if possible. Mr. 
Murphy brought him back to us again very 
kindly, and from that time his visits grew more 
frequent, till in the year 1766 his health, which 
he had always complained of, grew so exceed- 
ingly bad, that he could not stir out of his 
room in the court he inhabited for many weeks 
together, I think months. 

Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now be* 
came so acceptable to him, that he often la- 
mented to us the horrible condition of his mind, 
which he said was nearly distracted; and though 
he charged us to make him odd solemn promi- 
ses of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when 
we waited on him one morning, and heard him, 
in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers of 
Dr. Delap, who had left him as we came in, I 
felt excessively affected with grief, and well 
remember my husband involuntarily lifted up 
one hand to shut his mouth, from provocation 
at hearing a man so wildly proclaim what he 
could at last persuade no one to believe, and 

H 



98 ANECDOTES OF 

what, if true, would have been so very unfit to 
reveal. 

Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leaving 
me with him, and bidding me prevail on him 
to quit his close habitation in the court and 
come with us to Streatham, where I undertook 
the care of his health, and had the honour and 
happiness of contributing to its restoration. 
This task, though distressing enough some- 
times, would have been less so had not my 
mother and he disliked one another extremely, 
and teased me often with perverse opposition, 
petty contentions, and mutual complaints. 
Her superfluous attention to such accounts of 
the foreign politics as are transmitted to us by 
the daily prints, and her willingness to talk on 
subjects he could not endure, began the aver- 
sion ; and when by the peculiarity of his style, 
she found out that he teased her by writing in 
the newspapers concerning battles and plots 
which had no existence, only to feed her with 
new accounts of the division of Poland perhaps, 
or the disputes between the states of Russia and 
Turkey, she was exceedingly angry to be sure, 
and scarcely I think forgave the offence, till the 
domestic distresses of the year 1772 reconciled 



DR. SAMtJEL JOHNSON. 99 

them to, and taught them the true value of, each 
other; excellent as they both were, far beyond 
the excellence of any other man and woman I 
ever yet saw. As her conduct too extorted his 
truest esteem, her cruel illness excited all his 
tenderness ; nor was the sight of beauty, scarce 
to be subdued by disease, and wit, flashing 
through the apprehension of evil, a scene which 
Dr. Johnson could see without sensibility. He 
acknowledged himself improved by her piety, 
and astonished at her fortitude, and hung over 
her bed with the affection of a parent, and the 
reverence of a son. Nor did it give me less 
pleasure to see her sweet mind cleared of all its 
latent prejudices, and left at liberty to admire 
and applaud that force of thought and versati- 
lity of genius, that comprehensive soul and be- 
nevolent heart, which attracted and command- 
ed veneration from all, but inspired peculiar 
sensations of delight mixed with reverence in 
those who, like her, had the opportunity to ob- 
serve these qualities, stimulated by gratitude, 
and actuated by friendship. When Mr. Thrale's 
perplexities disturbed his peace, dear Dr. John- 
son left him scarce a moment, and tried every 
artifice to amuse, as well as every argu- 
h 2 



100 ANECDOTES OF 

ment to console him: nor is it more possible to 
describe than to forget his prudent, his pious 
attentions towards the man who had some years 
before certainly saved his valuable life, perhaps 
his reason, by half obliging him to change the 
foul air of Fleet-street for the wholesome bree- 
zes of the Sussex Downs. 

The epitaph engraved on my mother's monu- 
ment shews how deserving she was of general 
applause . I asked Johnson why he named her 
person before her mind : he said it was, "be- 
cause every body could judge of the one, and 
but few of the other." 



Juxta sepulta est Hestera Maria 

Thomas Cotton de Combermere baronetti Cestriensis filia 

Johannis Salusbury armigeri Flintiensis uxor. 

Forma felix, felix ingenio ; 

Omnibus jucunda, suorum amantissima. 

Linguis artibusque ita exculta 

Ut loquenti nunquam deessent 

Sermonis nitor, sententiarum flosculi, 

Sapientiae gravitas, leporum gratia : 

Modum serrandi adeo perita 

Ut domestica inter negotia Uteris oblectaretur, 

Literarum inter delicias, rem familiarem sedulo curaret, 

Multis illi multos annos precantibus 

diri carcinomatis veneno contabuit, 

nexibusque vitae paulatim resolutis, 

e terris— meliora sperans— cmigravit. 

Nata 1707. Nupta 1739. Obiit 1773. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 101 

Mr. Murphy, who admired her talents and 
delighted in her company, did me the favour to 
paraphrase this elegant inscription in verses 
which I fancy have never yet been published. 
His fame has long been out of my power to in- 
crease as a poet ; as a man of sensibility per- 
haps these lines may set him higher than he 
now stands. I remember with gratitude the 
friendly tears which prevented him from speak- 
ing as he put them into my hand. 

Near this place 

Are deposited the remains of 

HESTER MARIA, 

The daughter of Sir Thomas Cotton of Combermere, 

in the county of Cheshire, Bart, the wife of 

John Salusbury, 

of the county of Flint, Esquire. She was 

born in the year 1707, married in 1739, and died in 1773. 

A pleasing form, where every grace combin'd, 
With genius blest, a pure enlighten'd mind; 
Benevolence on all that smiles bestow'd, 
A heart that for her friends with love o'erflow'd : 
In language skill'd, by science form'd to please, 
Her mirth was wit, her gravity was ease. 
Graceful in all, the happy mien she knew, 
Which even to virtue gives the limits due ; 
Whate'er employed her, that she seem'd to choose, 
Her house, her friends, her business, or the muse. 
Admir'd and lov'd, the theme of general praise, 
All to such virtue wish'd a length of days : 
But sad reverse ! with slow-consuming pains, ( 
i* . . 'Th envenom' d cancer revell'd in her veins ; 



102 ANECDOTES OF 

Prey'd on her spirits—stole each power away ; 
Gradual she sunk, yet smiling in deeay ; 
She smil'd in hope, by sore afflictions tried, 
And in that hope the pious Christian died. 

The following epitaph on Mr. Thrale, who 
has now a monument close by hers in Strea- 
tham church, I have seen printed and com- 
mended in Maty's Review for April, 1784 ; 
and a friend has favoured me with the transla- 
tion. 

Hie conditur quod reliquum est 

Henrici Thrale, 

Qui res seu civiles, seu domesticas, ita egit, 

Ut vitamilli longiorem multi optarent; 

Ita sacras, 

Ut quam brevem esset habiturus praescire videretur ; 

Simplex, apertus, sibique semper simiiis, 

Nihil ostentavit aut arte fictum aut cura 

Elaboratum. 

In senatu, regi patriaeque 

Fideliterstuduit; 

Vulgi obstrepentis contemptor animosus, 

Domi inter mille mercaturse negotia 

Literarum elegantiam minime neglexit. 

Amicis quocunque modo laborantibus, 

Conciliis, auctoritate, muneribus adfuit. 

Inter familiares, comites, convivas, hospites, 

Tarn facili fuit morrtin suavitate 

Ut omnium animos ad se alliceret ; 

Tarn felici sermonis libertate 

U t nulli adulatus, omnibus placerct. 

Natus 1724. Ob. 1781. 

Consortes tumuli habetRodolphum patrem, strenuum 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 103 

fortemque virum, et Henricum filium unicum, 

quern spei parentum mors inopiua decennem 

praeripuit. 

Ita 

Domus felix et opulcnta, quam erexit 

Avus, auxitque pater, cum nepote decidit. 

Abi viator ! 

Et vicibus rerum humanarum perspectis, 

JEternitatem cogita ! 

Here are deposited the remains of 

Henry Thrale, 

Who managed all his concerns in the present 

world, public and private, in such a manner 

as to leave many wishing he had continued 

longer in it ; 

And all that related to a future world, 

as if he had been sensible how short a time he 

was to continue in this. 

Simple, open, and uniform in his manners, 

his conduct was without either art or affectation. 

In the senate steadily attentive to the true interests 

of his king and country, 

He looked down with contempt on the clamours 

of the multitude: 

Though engaged in a very extensive business, 

He found some time to apply to polite literature : 

And was ever ready to assist his friends 

labouring under any difficulties, 

with his advice, his influence, and his purse. 

To his friends, acquaintance, and guests, 

he behaved with such sweetness of manners 

as to attach them all to his person : 

So happy in his conversation with them, 

as to please all, though he flattered none. 

He was born in the year 1724, and died in 1781. 

In the same tomb lie interred his father 

Ralph Thrale, a man of vigour and activity, 



104 ANECDOTES OF 

And his only son Henry, who died before his father, 

Aged ten years. 

Thus a happy and opulent family, 

Raised by the grandfather, and augmented by the 

father, became extinguished with the grandson. 

Go, Reader ! 

And, reflecting on the vicissitudes of 

all human affairs. 

Meditate on eternity. 

I never recollect to have heard that Dr. 
Johnson wrote inscriptions for any sepulchral 
stones, except Dr. Goldsmith's in Westminster 
Abbey, and these two in Streatham church. 
He made four lines once on the death of poor 
Hogarth, which were equally true and pleas- 
ing : I know not why Garrrick's were prefer- 
red to them. 

The hand of him here torpid lies, 
That drew the essential form of grace ; 
Here clos'd in death the attentive eyes, 
That saw the manners in the face. 

Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnes- 
ses shewn to me when I was too young to have 
a proper sense of them, was used to be very 
earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, 
and if possible, the friendship, of Dr. Johnson, 
whose conversation was to the talk of other 
men, like Titian's painting compared to Hud- 



DR. SAMUEL JHONSON. 105 

son's, he said : but don't you tell people now, 
that I say so (continued he), for the connois- 
seurs and I are at war you know ; and because 
I hate them, they think I hate Titian — and let 
them! Many were indeed the lectures I used to 
have in my very early days from dear Mr. Ho- 
garth, whose regard for my father induced him 
perhaps to take notice of his little girl, and give 
her some odd particular directions about dress, 
dancing*, and many other matters, interesting 
now only because they were his. As he made 
all his talents, however, subservient to the great 
purposes of morality, and the earnest desire he 
had to mend mankind, his discourse commonly 
ended in an ethical dissertation, and a serious 
charge to me, never to forget his picture of the 
Lady's last Stake. Of Dr. Johnson, when my 
father and he were talking together about him 
one day: That man (says Hogarth) is not con- 
tented with believing the Bible, but he fairly 
resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the, 
Bible. Johnson (added he), though so wise a 
fellow, is more like king David than king Solo- 
mon; for he says in his haste that all men are 
liars. This charge, as I afterward came to 
know, was but too well founded ; Mr. Johnson's 



106 ANECDOTES OF 

incredulity amounted almost to disease, and I 
have seen it mortify his companions exceed- 
ingly. But the truth is, Mr. Thrale had a very 
powerful influence over the Doctor, and could 
make him suppress many rough answers : he 
could likewise prevail on him to change his shirt, 
his coat, or his plate, almost before it came indis- 
pensably necessary to the comfortable feelings 
of his friends: but as I never had any ascendency 
at all over Mr. Johnson, except just in the 
things that concerned his health, it grew ex- 
tremely perplexing and difficult to live in the 
house with him when the master of it was no 
more; the worse, indeed, because his dislikes 
grew capricious; and he could scarce bear to 
have any body come to the house whom it was 
absolutely necessary for me to see. Two gen- 
tlemen, I perfectly well remember, dining with 
us at Streatham in the summer 1782, when El- 
liot's brave defence of Gibraltar was a subject 
of common discourse, one of these men natu- 
rally enough began some talk about red-hot 
balls thrown with surprising dexterity and ef- 
fect : which Dr. Johnson having listened some 
time to, "I would advise you, sir (said he, with 
a cold sneer), never to relate this story again; 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 107 

you really can scarce imagine how very poor a 
figure you make in the telling of it." Our 
guest being bred a Quaker, and I believe a man 
of an extremely gentle disposition, needed no 
more reproofs for the same folly ; so if he ever 
did speak again, it was in a low voice to the 
friend who came with him. The check was gi- 
ven before dinner, and after coffee I left the 
room. When in the evening however our com- 
panions were returned to London, and Mr. 
Johnson and myself were left alone, with only 
our usual family about us, "I did not quarrel 
with those Quaker fellows," said he, very seri- 
ously. You did perfectly right, replied I ; for 
they gave you no cause of offence. "No of- 
fence! (returned he with an altered voice;) and 
is it nothing then to sit whispering together 
when 7 am present, without ever directing their 
discourse towards me, or offering me a share 
in the conversation > " That was, because you 
frighted him who spoke first about those hot 
balls. "Why, madam, if a creature is neither 
capable of giving dignity to falsehood, nor wil- 
ling to remain contented with the truth, he 
deserves no better treatment." 

Mr. Johnson's fixed incredulity of every thing 



108 ANECDOTES OF 

he heard, and his little care to conceal that in- 
credulity, was teasing enough to be sure : and 
I saw Mr. Sharp was pained exceedingly, when 
relating the history of a hurricane that happen- 
ed about that time in the West Indies, where, 
for aught I know, he had himself lost some 
friends too, he observed Di. Johnson believed 
not a syllable of the account: "For 'tis so easy 
(says he) for a man to fill his mouth with won- 
der, and run about telling the lie before it can 
be detected, that I have no heart to believe hur- 
ricanes easily raised by the first inventor, and 
blown forwards by thousands more." I asked 
him once if he believed the story of the de- 
struction of Lisbon by an earthquake when it 
first happened: "Oh! not for six months (said 
he) at least : I did think that story too dreadful 
to be credited, and can hardly yet persuade 
myself that it was true to the full extent we all 
of us have heard. * 

Among the numberless people, however, 
whom I heard him grossly and flatly contradict, 
I never yet saw any one who did not take it 
patiently excepting Dr. Burney, from whose 
habitual softness of manners I little expected 
such an exertion of spirit: the event was as 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 109 

little to be expected. Mr. Johnson asked his 
pardon generously and genteelly, and when he 
left the room rose up to shake hands with him, 
that they might part in peace. On another oc- 
casion, when he had violently provoked Mr. 
Pepys, in a different but perhaps not a less of- 
fensive manner, till something much too like a 
quarrel was grown up between them, the mo- 
ment he was gone, "Now (says Dr. Johnson) 
is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him 
better than I did before : he spoke in defence 
of his dead friend; but though I hope / spoke 
better who spoke against him, yet all my elo- 
quence will gain me nothing but an honest man 
for my enemy !" He did not however cordially 
love Mr. Pepys, though he respected his abili- 
ties. "I knew the dog was a scholar (said he, 
when they had been disputing about the classics 
for three hours together one morning at S treat- 
ham); but that he had so much taste and so 
much knowledge I did not believe: I might 
have taken Barnard's word though, for Barnard 
would not lie." 

We had got a little French print among us at 
Brighthelmstone, in November 1782, of some 
people skaiting, with these lines written under: 



110 ANECDOTES OF 

Sur un mince chrystal 1'hyver conduit leurs pas, 

Le precipice est sous la glace ; 
Telle est de nos plaisirs la iegere surface, 

Glissez mortels j n'appayez pas. 



And I begged translations from every body 
Dr. Johnson gave me this ; 



O'er ice the rapid skaiter flies, 

With sport above and death below : 

Where mischief lurks in gay disguise, 
Thus lightly touch and quickly go. 



He was however most exceedingly enraged 
when he knew that in the course of the season 
I had asked half a dozen acquaintance to do the 
same thing ; and said, it was a piece of trea- 
chery, and done to make every body else look 
little when compared to my favourite friend^ 
the Pepyses, whose translations were unquesti- 
onably the best. I will insert them because he 
did say so. This is the distich given me by sir 
Lucas, to whom I owe more solid obligations, 
no less than the power of thanking him for the 
life he saved, and whose least valuable praise 
is the correctness of his taste : 



O'er the ice as o'er pleasure you lightly should glide, 
Both have gulfs which their flattering surfaces hide. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. Ill 

This other more serious one was written by his 
brother : 

Swift o'er the level how the skaiters slide, 
And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go : 

Thus o'er life's specious pleasures lightly glide, 
But pause not, press not on the gulf below. 

Dr. Johnson seeing this last, and thinking a 
moment, repeated, 

O'er crackling ice, o'er gulfs profound, 

With nimble glide the skaiters play ; 
O'er treacherous pleasure's flow'ry ground 

Thus lightly skim, and haste away. 

Though thus uncommonly ready both to give 
and take offence, Mr. Johnson had many rigid 
maxims concerning the necessity of continued 
softness and compliance of disposition : and 
when I once mentioned Shenstone's idea, that 
some little quarrel among lovers, relations, 
and friends, was useful, and contributed to 
their general happiness upon the whole, by 
making the soul feel her elastic force, and re- 
turn to the beloved object with renewed de- 
light : — " Why, what a pernicious maxim is 
this now (cries Johnson), all quarrels ought to 
be avoided studiously, particularly conjugal 
ones, as no one can possibly tell where they 



112 ANECDOTES OF 

may end ; besides that lasting dislike is often 
the consequence of occasional disgust, and that 
the cup of life is surely bitter enough, without 
squeezing in the hateful rind of resentment." 
It was upon something like the same principle, 
and from, his general hatred of refinement, that 
when I told him how Dr. Collier, in order to 
keep the servants in humour with his favourite 
dog, by seeming rough with the animal himself 
on many occasions, and crying out, Why will 
nobody knock this cur's brains out? meant to 
conciliate their tenderness towards Pompey; 
he returned me for answer, "that the maxim 
was evidently false, and founded on ignorance 
of human life : that the servants would kick the 
dog the sooner for having obtained such a sanc- 
tion to their severity: and I once (added he) 
chid my wife for beating the cat before the maid, 
who -will now (said I) treat puss with cruelty 
perhaps, and plead her mistress's example." 

I asked him upon this, if he ever disputed 
with his wife? (I had heard that he loved her 
passionately.) . " Perpetually (said he) : my 
wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, 
and desired the praise of neatness in her dress 
and furniture, as many ladies do, till they be- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 113 

come troublesome to their best friends, slaves 
to their own besoms, and only sigh for the 
hour of sweeping their husbands out of the 
house as dirt and useless lumber : a clean 
floor is so comfortable, she would say some- 
times, by way of twitting; till at last I told 
her, that I thought we had had talk enough 
about the floor, we would now have a touch at 
the deling" 

On another occasion I have heard him blame 
her for a fault many people have, of setting the 
miseries of their neighbours half unintentionally, 
half wantonly, before their eyes, shewing them 
the bad side of their profession, situation, &c. 
He said, " she would lament the dependance 
of pupillage to a young heir, &c. and once told 
a waterman who rowed her along the Thames 
in a wherry, that he was no happier than a 
galley-slave, one being chained to the oar by 
authority, the other by want. I had however 
(said he, laughing,) the wit to get her daughter 
on my side always before we began the dispute. 
She read comedy better than any body he ever 
heard (he said) ; in tragedy she mouthed too 
much." 

Garrick told Mr. Thrale however, that she 



114 ANECDOTES OF 

was a little painted puppet, of no value at all, 
and quite disguised with affectation, full of odd 
airs of rural elegance ; and he made out some 
comical scenes, by mimicking her in a dialogue 
he pretended to have overheard : I do not know 
whether he meant such stuff to be believed or 
no, it was so comical ; nor did I indeed ever 
see him represent her ridiculously, though my 
husband did. The intelligence I gained of her 
from old Levett, was only perpetual illness and 
perpetual opium. The picture I found of her 
at Litchfield was very pretty, and her daughter 
Mrs. Lucy Porter said it was like. Mr. John- 
son has told me, that her hair was eminently 
beautiful, quite blonde like that of a baby ; but 
that she fretted about the colour, and was al- 
ways desirous to die it black,' which he very 
judiciously hindered her from doing. His 
account of their wedding we used to think 
ludicrous enough — " I was riding to church 
(says Johnson), and she following on another 
single horse : she hung back however, and I 
turned about to see whether she could get her 
steed along, or what was the matter. I had 
however soon occasion to see it was only co- 
quetry, and that I despised, so quickening my 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 115 

paGe a little, she mended hers ; but I believe 
there was a tear or two — pretty dear creature 1" 

Johnson loved his dinner exceedingly, and 
has often said in my hearing, perhaps for my 
edification, " that wherever the dinner is ill 
got there is poverty, or there is avarice, or 
there is stupidity ; in short, the family is some- 
how grossly wrong : for (continued he) a man 
seldom thinks with more earnestness of any 
thing than he does of his dinner; and if he 
cannot get that well dressed, he should be sus- 
pected of inaccuracy in other things." One 
day, when he was speaking upon the subject, 
I asked him, if he ever huffed his wife about 
his dinner ? "So often (replied he), that at 
last she called to me, and said, Nay hold, Mr. 
Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking 
God for a dinner which in a few minutes you 
will protest not eatable." 

When any disputes arose between our mar- 
ried acquaintance however, Mr. Johnson always 
sided with the husband, " whom (he said) the 
woman had probably provoked so often, she 
scarce knew when or how she had disobliged 
him first. Women (says Dr. Johnson) give 
great offence by a contemptuous spirit of non- 

i 2 



116' ANECDOTES OF 

compliance on petty occasions. The man calls 
his wife to walk with him in the shade, and 
she feels a strange desire just at that moment 
to sit in the sun ; he offers to read her a play, 
or sing her a song, and she calls the children 
in to disturb them, or advises him to seize that 
opportunity of settling the family accounts. 
Twenty such tricks will the faithfullest wife in 
the world not refuse to play, and then look 
astonished when the fellow fetches in a mis- 
tress. Boarding-schools were established (con- 
tinued he) for the conjugal quiet of the parents: 
the two partners cannot agree which child to 
fondle, nor how to fondle them, so they put the 
young ones to school and remove the cause of 
contention. The little girl pokes her head, 
the mother reproves her sharply : Do not mind 
your mamma, says the father, my dear, but do 
your own way. The mother complains to me 
of this : Madam (said I), your husband is right 
all the while ; he is with you but two hours of 
the day perhaps, and then you tease him by 
making the child cry. Are not ten hours 
enough for tuition ? And are the hours of plea- 
sure so frequent in life, that when a man gets 
a couple of quiet ones to spend in familiar chat 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 117 

with his wife, they must be poisoned by petty 
mortifications ? Put missey to school ; she will 
learn to hold her head like her neighbours, and 
you will no longer torment your family for want 
of other talk." 

The vacuity of life had at some early period 
of his life struck so forcibly on the mind of 
Mr. Johnson, that it became by repeated im- 
pression his favourite hypothesis, and the gene- 
ral tenor of his reasonings commonly ended 
there, wherever they might begin. Such things 
therefore as other philosophers often attribute 
to various and contradictory causes, appeared 
to him uniform enough; all was done to fill up 
the time, upon his principle. I used to tell 
him, that it was like the clown's answer in As 
you like it, of " Oh Lord, sir!" for that it suited 
every occasion. One man, for example, was 
profligate and wild, as we call it, followed the 
girls, or sat still at the gaming-table. " Why, 
life must be filled up (says Johnson), and the 
man who is not capable of intellectual plea- 
sures must content himself with such as his 
senses can afford." Another was a hoarder : 
"Why, a fellow must do something; and what 
so easy to a narrow mind as hoarding halfpence 



118 ANECBOTES Ol 

till they turn into sixpences ?" — Avarice was a 
vice against which, however, I never much 
heard Mr. Johnson declaim, till one represented 
it to him connected with cruelty, or some such 
disgraceful companion. "Do not (said he) 
discourage your children from hoarding, if they 
have a taste to it: whoever lays up his penny 
rather than part with it for a cake, at least is 
not the slave of gross appetite ; and shews be- 
sides a preference always to be esteemed, of the 
future to the present moment. Such a mind 
may be made a good one; but the natural 
spendthrift, who grasps his pleasures greedily 
and coarsely, and cares for nothing but imme- 
diate indulgence, is very little to be valued 
above a negro." We talked of lady Tavistock, 
who grieved herself to death for the loss of 
her husband — " She was rich and wanted em- 
ployment (says Johnson), so she cried till she 
lost all power of restraining her tears : other 
women are forced to outlive their husbands, 
who were just as much beloved, depend on it; 
but they have no time for grief: and I doubt 
not, if we had put my lady Tavistock into a 
small chandler's shop, and given her a nurse- 
ehild to tend, her life would have been saved. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 119 

The poor and the busy have no leisure for sen- 
timental sorrow." We were speaking of a 
gentleman who loved his friend — " Make him 
prime minister (says Johnson), and see how 
long his friend will be remembered." But he 
had a rougher answer for me, when I com- 
mended a sermon preached by an intimate ac- 
quaintance of our own at the trading end of 
the town. " What was the subject, madam ?" 
says Dr. Johnson. Friendship, sir, replied I. 
" Why now, is it not strange that a wise man, 
like our dear little Evans, should take it in his 
head to preach on such a subject, in a place 
where no one can be thinking of it ?" Why 
what are they thinking upon, sir? said, I. 
" Why the men are thinking on their money, 
I suppose, and the women are thinking of 
their mops." 

Dr. Johnson's knowledge and esteem of what 
we call low or coarse life was indeed prodi- 
gious ; and he did not like that the upper ranks 
should be dignified with the name of the world. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds said one day, that nobody 
wore laced coats now ; and that once every 
body wore them. "See now (says Johnson) how 
absurd that is ; as if the bulk of mankind con- 



120 ANECDOTES OE 

sisted of fine gentlemen that came to him to 
sit for their pictures. If every man who wears 
a laced coat (that he can pay for) was extir- 
pated, who would miss them?" With all this 
haughty contempt of gentility, no praise was 
more welcome to Dr. Johnson than that which 
said he had the notions or manners of a gentle- 
man: which character I have heard him de- 
fine with accuracy, and describe with ele- 
gance. "Officers (he said) were falsely sup- 
posed to have the carriage of gentlemen; where- 
as no profession left a stronger brand behind 
it than that of a soldier; and it was the essence 
of a gentleman's character to bear the visible 
mark of no profession whatever." He once 
named Mr. Berenger as the standard of true 
elegance ; but some one objecting, that he too 
much resembled the gentleman in Congreve's 
comedies, Mr. Johnson said, "We must fix 
then upon the famous Thomas Hervey, whose 
manners were polished even to acuteness and 
brilliancy, though he lost but little in solid pow- 
er of reasoning, and in genuine force of mind." 
Mr. Johnson had however an avowed and 
scarcely limited partiality for all who bore the 
name or boasted the alliance of an Aston or a 



DH. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 121 

Hervey ; and when Mr. Thrale once asked him 
which had been the happiest period of his past 
life? he replied, ''It was that year in which he 
spent one whole evening with M — y As— n. 
That indeed (said he) was not happiness, it 
was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened 
the whole year." I must add, that the evening 
alluded to was not passed tete-a-tete, but in a 
select company, of which the present Lord 
Killmorey was one. "Molly (says Dr. Johnson) 
was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a 
Whig ; and she talked all in praise of liberty : 
and so I made this epigram upon her — She 
was the lovliest creature I ever saw ! ! ! 



Liber ut esse velim, suasisti pulchra Maria, 
Ut maneam liber — pulchra Maria, vale !" 



Will it do this way in English, sir ? said I, 



Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you 
If freedom we seek — fair Maria, adieu ! 



"It will do well enough (replied he); but it is 
translated by a lady, and the ladies never loved 

M -y As n." I asked him what/as wife 

thought of this attachment? "She was jealous 



122 ANECDOTES OF 

to be sure (said he), and teased me sometimes, 
when I would let her ; and one day, as a fortune- 
telling gipsey passed us when we were walking- 
out in company with two or three friends in the 
country, she made the wench look at my hand, 
but soon repented her curiosity; for, says the 
gipsey, Your heart is divided, sir, between a 
Betty and a Molly: Betty loves you best, but 
you take most delight in Molly's company: 
when I turned about to laugh, I saw my wife 
was crying. Pretty charmer! she had no rea- 
son!" It was, I believe, long after the currents of 
life had driven him to a great distance from this 
lady, that he spent much of his time with Mrs. 
F — zh — b — t, of whom he always spoke with 
esteem and tenderness, and with a veneration 
very difficult to deserve." That woman (said 
he) loved her husbandas we hope and desire to 
be loved by our guardian angel. F — tzh — b — t 
was a gay good-humoured fellow, generous 
of his money and of his meat, and desirous 
of nothing but good cheerful society among 
people distinguished in some way, in any way I 
think; for Rousseau and St. Austin would have 
been equally welcome to his table and to his 
kindness: the lady however was of another 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 123 

way of thinking ; her first care was to preserve 
her husband's soul from corruption ; her second, 
to keep his estate entire for their children : and 
I owed my good reception in the family to the idea 
she had entertained, that I was fit company for 
F — tzh — b — t, whom I loved extremely. They 
dare not (said she) swear, and take other con- 
versation-liberties befpjre you." I asked if her 
husband returned her regard? "He felt her in- 
fluence too powerfully (replied Mr. Johnson) : 
no man will be fond of what forces him daily 
to feel himself inferior. She stood at the door 
of her paradise in Derbyshire, like the angel 
with the flaming sword, to keep the devil at a 
distance. But she was not immortal, poor 
dear! she died, and her husband felt at once 
afflicted and released." I enquired if she was 
handsome? " She would have been handsome 
for a queen (replied the panegyrist); her beau- 
ty had more in it of majesty than of attraction, 
more of the dignity of virtue than the vivacity of 
wit." The friend of this lady, miss B — thby 
succeeded her in the management of Mr. 
F — -tzh — b — t's family, and in the esteem of Dr. 
Johnson; though he told me she pushed her 
piety to bigotry, her devotion to enthusiasm ; 



124 ANECDOTES OF 

that she somewhat disqualified herself for the 
duties of this life by her perpetual aspirations 
after the next : such was however the purity of her 
mind, he said, and such the graces of her manner, 
that lord Lyttelton. and he used to strive for her 
preference with an emulation that occasioned 
hourly disgust, and ended in lasting animosity. 
"You may see (said he^g me, when the Poets' 
Lives w r ere printed) that dear B — thby is at my 
heart still. She would delight in that fellow 
Lyttelton's company though, all that I could 
do ; and I cannot forgive even his memory the 
preference given by a mind like hers." I have 
heard Baretti say, that when this lady died, 
Dr. Johnson, was almost distracted with his 
grief; and that the friends about him had much 
ado to calm the violence of his emotions. Dr. 
Taylor too related once to Mr f Thrale and me, 
that when he lost his wife, the negro Francis 
ran away, though in the middle of the night, to 
Westminster, to fetch Dr. Taylor to his master, 
who was all but wild with excess of sorrow, and 
scarce knew him when he arrived : after some mi- 
nutes however, the doctor proposed their going 
to prayers, as the only rational method of 
calming the disorder this misfortune had occa- 



DR. SAMUEL JHONSON. 125 

sioned in both their spirits. Time, and resig- 
nation to the will of God, cured every breach 
in his heart before I made acquaintance with 
liim, though he always persisted in saying he 
never rightly recovered the loss of his wife. 
It is in allusion to her that he records the ob- 
servation of a female critic, as he calls her, in 
Gay's Life ; and the lady of great beauty and 
elegance, mentioned in the criticisms upon 
Pope's epitaphs, was miss Molly Aston. The 
person spoken of in his strictures upon Young's 
poetry, is the writer of these Anecdotes, to 
whom he likewise addressed the following ver- 
ses when he was in the Isle of Sky with Mr. 
Bos well. The letters written in his journey, I 
used to tell him, were better than the printed 
book; and he was not displeased at my having 
taken the pains to copy them all over. Here 
is the Latin ode ; 

Permeo terras, ubi nuda rupes 
Saxeas miscet nebulis ruinas, 
Torva ubi rident steriles coloni 

Rura labores. 

Pervagor gentes, hominum ferorum 
Vita ubi nullo decorata cultu, 
Squallet informis, tigurique fumis 

Foedalatescit. 



126 ANECDOTES 0¥ 

Inter erroris salebrosa longi, 
Inter ignotse strepitus loquelse, 
Quot modis mecum, quid agat requiro 

Thralia duleis ? 

Seu viri curas pia nupta mulcet, 
Seufovet mater sobolem benigna, 
Sive cum libris novitate pascit 

Sedula inentem 

Sit memor nostri, fideique merces, 
Stet fides constans, meritoque blandum 
Thralas discant rcsonare nomen 

Littora Skiae. 



On another occasion I can boast verses from 
Dr. Johnson — as I went into his room the 
morning of my birth-day once and said to him, 
Nobody sends me any verses now, because I 
am five-and-thirty years old; and Stella was 
fed with them till forty-six, I remember. My 
being just recovered from illness and confine- 
ment will account for the manner in which he 
burst out suddenly, for so he did without the 
least previous hesitation whatsoever, and with- 
out having entertained the smallest intention 
towards it half a minute before: 



Oft in danger, yet alive, 
We are come to thirty-five ; 
Long may better years arrive, 
Better years than tbirty-fivc. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 127 

Could philosophers contrive 

Life to stop at thirty-fire, 

Time his hours should never dive 

O'er the bounds of thirty-five. 

High to soar, and deep to drive, 

Nature gives at thirty-five. 

Ladies, stock and tend your hive, 

Trifle not at thirty-five : 

For howe'er we boast and strive, 

Life declines from thirty-five : 

He that ever hopes to thrive 

Must begin by thirty-five ; 
And all who wisely wish to wive 
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five. 

*' And now (said he, as I was writing them 
down) you may see what it is to come for poe- 
try to a Dictionary-maker; you may observe 
that the rhymes run in alphabetical order ex- 
actly." And so they do. 

Mr. Johnson did indeed possess an almost 
Tuscan power of improvisation : when he called 
to my daughter, who was consulting with a 
friend about a new gown and dressed hat she 
thought of wearing to an assembly, thus sud- 
denly, while she hoped he was not listening to 
their conversation, 



Wear the gown and wear the hat, 
Snatch thy pleasures while they last , 

Hadst thou nine lives like a cat, 
Soon those nine lives would be past. 



128 ANECDOTES OE 

It is impossible to deny to such little sallies 
the power of the Florentines, who do not permit 
their verses to be ever written down though 
they often deserve it, because, as they express 
it, cosi se perderebbe la poca gloria. 

As for translations, we used to make him 
sometimes run off with one* or two in a good 
humour. He was praising this song of Metas- 
tatio, 

Deb, se piacermi vuoi, 
Lascia i sospetti tuoi, 
Won mi turbar conqucsto 
Molesto dubitar : 
Chi ciecamente crede, 
Impegna a serbar fede ; 
Chi sempre inganno aspeUa, 
Alletta adingannar. 

" Should you like it in English (said he) 
thus?" 

Would you hope to gain my heart, 
Bid your teasing doubts depart ; 
He who blindly trusts, will find 
Faith from every generous mind : 
He who still expects deceit, 
Only teaches how to cheat. 

Mr. Baretti coaxed him likewise one day at 
Streatham out of a translation of Emirena's 



BR. SAMUEL jOHNSOfr. 129 

speech to the false courtier Aquileius, and it is 
probably printed before now, as I think two 
or three people took copies; but perhaps it has 
slipped their memories. 

Ah ! tu in corte invecchiasti, e giurere'i 
Che fra i pochi non sei tenace ancora 
Dell' antica onesta: quando bisogna, 
Saprai sereno in volto 
Vezzeggiare un nemico $ accio vi cada, 
Aprirgli innanzi un precipizio, e poi 
Piangerne la caduta. Offrirti a tutti 
JE non esser che tuo j di false lodi 
Vesllr le accuse, ed aggravar le colpe 
Nel fame la difesa, ognor dal trono 
I buoni allontanar ; d' ogni castigo 
Lasciar 1' odio alio scettro, e d' ogni dono 
U merito usurpar : tener nascosto 
Sotto un zelo apparente un empio fine, 
Ne fabbricar che sulle altrui rouine. 

Grown old in courts, thou art not surely one 

Who keeps the rigid rules of ancient honour ; 

Well skill'd to soothe a foe with looks of kindness, 

To sink the fatal precipice before him, 

And then lament his fall with seeming friendship : 

Open to all, true only to thyself, 

Thou know'st those arts Which blast with envious praise^ 

Which aggravate a fault with feign'd excuses, 

Aud drive discountenanced virtue from the throne : 

That leave the blame Of rigour to the prince, 

And of his every gift usurp the merit; 

That hide in seeming zeal a wicked purpose. 

And only build upon another's ruin. 

These characters Dr. Johnson however did 

K 



130 ANECDOTES OF 

not delight in reading, or in hearing of : he al- 
ways maintained, that the world was not half 
as wicked as it was represented ; and he might 
very well continue in that opinion, as he reso- 
lutely drove from him every story that could 
make him change it; and when Mr. Bicker- 
staff's flight confirmed the report of his guilt, 
and my husband said in answer to Johnson's 
astonishment, that he had long been a suspected 
man : " By those who look close to the ground, 
dirt will be seen, sir (was the lofty reply) : I 
hope I see things from a greater distance." 

His desire to go abroad, particularly to see 
Italy, was very great ; and he had a longing 
wish too, to leave some Latin verses at the 
Grand Chartreux. He loved indeed the very 
act of travelling, and I cannot tell how far one 
might have taken him in a carriage before he 
would have wished for refreshment. He was 
therefore in some respects an admirable com- 
panion on the road, as he piqued himself upon 
feeling no inconvenience, and on despising no 
accommodations. On the other hand, however, 
he expected no one else to feel any, and felt 
exceedingly inflamed with anger if any one 
complained of the rain, the sun, or the dust. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 131 

" How (said he) do other people bear them V* 
As for general uneasiness, or complaints of long 
confinement in a carriage, he considered all 
lamentations on their account as proofs of an 
empty head, and a tongue desirous to talk 
without materials of conversation. "A mill 
that goes without grist (said he) is as good a 
companion as such creatures." 

I pitied a friend before him who had a whi- 
ning wife, that found every thing painful to her* 
and nothing pleasing—" He does not know 
that she whimpers (says Johnson) ; when a door 
has creaked for a fortnight together, you may 
observe— *the master will scarcely give sixpence 
to get it oiled." 

Of another lady, more insipid than offensive, 
I once heard him say, " She has some softness 
indeed, but so has a pillow." And when one 
observed in reply, that her husband's fidelity 
and attachment were exemplary, notwithstand- 
ing this low account at which her perfections 
were rated — "Why, sir (cries the Doctor), be- 
ing married to those sleepy-souled women, is 
just like playing at cards for nothing : no pas- 
sion is excited, and the time is filled up. I do 
not however envy a fellow one of those honey- 

k 2 



132 ANECDOTES Of 

suckle wives, for my part, as they are but creep- 
ers at best, and commonly destroy the tree 
they so tenderly cling about." 

For a lady of quality, since dead, who re- 
ceived us at her husband's seat in Wales with 
less attention than he had long been accus- 
tomed to, he had a rougher denunciation : 
"That woman (cries Johnson) is like sour 
small beer, the beverage of her table, and pro- 
duce of the wretched country she lives in: like 
that, she could never have been a good thing, 
and even that bad thing is spoiled." This was 
in the same vein of asperity, and I believe with 
something like the same provocation, that he 
observed of a Scotch lady, " that she resem- 
bled a dead nettle ; were she alive (said he) 
she would sting." 

Mr. Johnson's hatred of the Scotch is so 
well known, and so many of his bon mots ex- 
pressive of that hatred have been already re- 
peated in so many books and pamphlets, that 
it is perhaps scarcely worth while to write 
down the conversation between him and a 
friend of that nation, who always resides in 
London, and who at his return from the He- 
brides asked him, with a firm tone of voice, 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 133 

what he thought of his country? " That it is 
a very vile country to be sure, sir ;" returned 
for answer Dr. Johnson. Well, sir! replies the 
other somewhat mortified, God made it. "Cer- 
tainly he did (answers Mr. Johnson again) ; 
but we must always remember that he made it 
for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, 

Mr. S ; but God made hell." 

Dr. Johnson did not I think much delight in 
that kind of conversation which consists in tel- 
ling stories : "Every body (said he) tells stories 
of me, and I tell stories of nobody. I do not 
recollect (added he), that I have ever told you, 
that have been always favourites, above three 
stories ; but I hope I do not play the old fool, 
and force people to hear uninteresting narra- 
tives, only because I once was diverted with 
them myself." He was however no enemy to 
that sort of talk from the famous Mr. Foote, 
"whose happiness of manner in relating was 
such (he said) as subdued arrogance and roused 
stupidity ; his stories were truly like those of 
Biron in Love's Labour Lost, so very attractive 

That aged ears play'd truant with his tales, 
And younger hearings were quite ravished, 
So sweet and voluble was his discourse. 



134 ANECDOTES OF 

Of all conversers however (added he), the late 
Hawkins Browne was the most delightful with 
whom I ever was in company : his talk was at 
once so elegant, so apparently artless, so pure, 
and so pleasing, it seemed a perpetual stream 
of sentiment, enlivened by gaiety, and sparkling 
with images." When I asked Dr. Johnson, 
who was the best man he had ever known ? 
" Psalmanazar," was the unexpected reply: he 
said, likewise, -'that though a native of France, 
as his friend imagined, he possessed more of 
the English language, than any one of the other 
foreigners who had separately fallen in his 
way." Though there was much esteem how- 
ever, there was I believe but little confidence 
between them ; they conversed merely about 
general topics, religion and learning, of which 
both were undoubtedly stupendous examples ; 
and, with regard to true Christian perfection, 
I have heard Johnson say, "That George Psal- 
manazar's piety, penitence, and virtue, ex- 
ceeded almost what we read as wonderful even 
in the lives of saints." 

I forget in what year it was that this extra- 
ordinary person lived and died at a house in 
Old-street, where Mr. Johnson was witness to 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 135 

his talents and virtues, and to his final prefe- 
rence of the church of England, after having 
studied, disgraced, and adorned, so many modes 
of worship. The name he went by, was not 
supposed by his friend to be that of his family, 
but all enquiries were vain ; his reasons for con- 
cealing his original were penitentiary; he de- 
served no other name than that of the impostor, 
he said. That portion of the Universal History 
which was written by him, does not seem to 
me to be composed with peculiar spirit, but all 
traces of the wit and the wanderer were proba- 
bly worn out before he undertook the work. — 
His pious and patient endurance of a tedious 
illness, ending in an exemplary death, con- 
firmed the strong impression his merit had made 
upon the mind of Mr. Johnson. " It is so very 
difficult (said he, always) for a sick man not to 
be a scoundrel. Oh ! set the pillows soft, here 
is Mr. Grumbler o'coming : Ah ! let no air in 
for the world, Mr. Grumbler will be here pre- 
sently." 

This perpetual preference is so offensive, 
where the privileges of sickness are besides 
supported by wealth, and nourished bydepen- 
dance, that one cannot much wonder that a 



136 ANECDOTES OF 

rough mind is revolted by them. It was, how-* 
ever, at once comical and touchant (as the 
French call it), to observe Mr. Johnson so ha-? 
bitually watchful against this sort of behaviour, 
that he was often ready to suspect himself of it; 
and when one asked him gently, how he did— 
"Ready to become a scoundrel, madam (would 
commonly be the answer): with a little more 
spoiling you will, I think, make me a complete 
rascal." 

His desire of doing good was not however 
lessened by his aversion to a sick-chamber : he 
would have made an ill man well by any ex- 
pence or fatigue of his own, sooner than any of 
the canters. Canter indeed was he none: 
he would forget to ask people after the health 
of their nearest relations, and say in excuse, 
f ' That he knew they did not care : why should 
they ? (says he :) every one in this world has 
as much as they can do in caring for themselves, 
and few have leisure really to think of their 
neighbours' distresses, however they may de- 
light their tongues with talking of them.*' 

The natural depravity of mankind and re- 
mains of original sin were so fixed in Mr. 
Johnson's opinion, that he was indeed a most 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 137 

acute observer of their effects ; and used to 
say sometimes, half in jest, half in earnest, that 
they were the remains of his old tutor Mande- 
ville's instructions. As a book however, he 
took care always loudly to condemn the Fable 
of the Bees, but not without adding, " that it 
was the work of a thinking man." 

I have in former days heard Dr. Collier of 
the Commons loudly condemned for uttering 
sentiments, which twenty years after I have 
heard as loudly applauded from the lips of Dr. 
Johnson, concerning the well-known writer of 
that celebrated work : but if people will live 
long enough in this capricious world, such in- 
stances of partiality will shock them less and 
less, by frequent repetition. Mr. Johnson knew 
mankind, and wished to mend them : he there- 
fore, to the piety and pure religion, the un- 
tainted integrity, and scrupulous morals, of my 
earliest and most disinterested friend, judi- 
ciously contrived to join a cautious attention 
to the capacity of his hearers, and a prudent 
resolution not to lessen the influence of his 
learning and virtue, by casual freaks of hu- 
mour, and irregular starts of ill-managed mer- 
riment. He did not wish to confound, but to 



138 ANECDOTES OF 

inform his auditors ; and though he did not 
appear to solicit benevolence, he always wish- 
ed to retain authority, and leave his company 
impressed with the idea, that it was his to 
teach in this world, and theirs to learn. What 
wonder then that all should receive with doci- 
lity from Johnson those doctrines, which pro- 
pagated by Collier they drove away from them 
with shouts ! Dr. Johnson was not grave how- 
ever because he knew not how to be merry. 
No man loved laughing better, and his vein of 
humour was rich, and apparently inexhaust- 
ible; though Dr. Goldsmith said once to him, 
We should change companions oftener, we ex- 
haust one another, and shall soon be both of us 
worn out. Poor Goldsmith was to him indeed 
like the earthen pot to the iron one in Fontaine's 
fables ; it had been better for him perhaps, that 
they had changed companions oftener; yet no 
experience of his antagonist's strength hindered 
him from continuing the contest. He used to 
remind me always of that verse in Berni, 

II pover uomo che non sen* era accorto, 
Andava conabattcndo--ed era morto. 

Mr. Johnson made him a comical answer one 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 139 

day, when seeming to repine at the success of 
Beattie's Essay on Truth — "Here's such a stir 
(said he) about a fellow that has written one 
book, and I have written many." Ah, Doctor 
(says his friend), there go two-and- forty six- 
pences you know to one guinea. 

They had spent an evening with Eton Gra- 
ham too ; I remember hearing it was at some 
tavern; his heart was open, and he began in- 
viting away; told what he could do to make 
his college agreeable, and begged the visit 
might not be delayed. Goldsmith thanked 
him, and proposed setting out with Mr. John- 
son for Buckinghamshire in a fortnight ; " Nay 
hold, Dr. Minor (says the other), I did not in- 
vite you." 

Many such mortifications arose in the course 
of their intimacy to be sure, but few more 
laughable than when the newspapers had tack- 
ed them together as the pedant and his flat- 
terer in Love's Labour Lost. Dr. Goldsmith 
came to his friend, fretting and foaming, and 
vowing vengeance against the printer, &c. till 
Mr. Johnson, tired of the bustle-, and desirous 
to think of something else, cried out at last, 
" Why, what wouldest thou have, dear doctor! 



140 ANECDOTES OF 

who the plague is hurt with all this nonsense ? 
and how is a man the worse I wonder in his 
health, purse, or character, for being called 
HolofernesV I do not know, replies the other, 
how you may relish being called Hoiofernes, 
but I do not like at least to play Goodman 
Dull 

Dr. Johnson was indeed famous for disre- 
garding public abuse. When the "people criti* 
cised and answered his pamphlets, papers, &c, 
" Why now, these fellows are only advertising 
my book (he would say) ; it is surely better a 
man should be abused than forgotten." When 
Churchill nettled him, however, it is certain he 
felt the sting, or that poet's works would hardly 
have been left out of the edition. Of that how-? 
ever I have no right to decide ; the booksellers 
perhaps did not put Churchill on their list* 
I know Mr. Johnson was exceedingly zealous to 
declare how very little he had to do with the 
selection. Churchill's works too might possibly 
be rejected by him upon a higher principle; 
the highest indeed, if he was inspired by the 
same laudable motive which made him reject 
every authority for a word in his Dictionary 
that could only be gleaned from writers dange- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 141 

rous to religion or morality — " I would not 
(said he) send people to look for words in a 
book, that by such a casual seizure of the mind 
might chance to mislead it for ever." In con- 
sequence of this delicacy, Mrs. Montague once 
observed, That were an angel to give the im- 
primatur, Dr. Johnson's works were among 
those very few which would not be lessened 
by a line. That such praise from such a lady 
should delight him, is not strange ; insensibility 
in a case like that, must have been the result 
alone of arrogance acting on stupidity. Mr. 
Johnson had indeed no dislike to the commen- 
dations which he knew he deserved: "What 
signifies protesting so against flattery ! (would 
he cry :) when a person speaks well of one, it 
must be either true or false, you know ; if true, 
let us rejoice in his good opinion; if he lies, it 
is a proof at least that he loves more to please 
me, than to sit silent when he need say nothing." 
That natural roughness of his manner, so 
often mentioned, would, notwithstanding the 
regularity of his notions, burst through them 
all from time to time ; and he once bade a very 
celebrated lady, who praised him with too much 
zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong an empha- 



142 ■ ANECDOTES OF 

sis (which always offended him), " consider 
what her flattery was worth before she choked 
him with it." A few more winters passed in 
the talking world shewed him the value of that 
friend's commendations, however ; and he was 
very sorry for the disgusting speech he made her. 

I used to think Mr, Johnson's determined 
preference of a cold monotonous talker over an 
emphatical and violent one, would make him 
quite a favourite among the men of ton, whose 
insensibility, or affectation of perpetual calm- 
ness, certainly did not give to him the offence 
it does to many. He loved " conversation 
without effort," he said ; and the encomiums I 
have heard him so often pronounce on the man- 
ners of Topham Beauclerc in society, constantly 
ended in that peculiar praise, that " it was 
without effort" 

We were talking of Richardson, who wrote 
Clarissa : " You think I love flattery (says Dr. 
Johnson), and so I do ; but a little too much 
always disgusts me : that fellow Richardson, 
on the contrary, could not be contented to sail 
quietly down the stream of reputation, without 
longing to taste the froth from every stroke of 
the oar." 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 143 

With regard to slight insults from newspaper 
abuse, I have already declared his notions : 
" They sting one (says he) but as a fly stings a 
horse ; and the eagle will not catoh flies." He 
once told me, however, that Cummyns, the 
famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued 
very highly, fell a sacrifice to their insults, ha- 
ving declared on his death-bed to Dr. Johnson, 
that the pain of an anonymous letter, written 
in some of the common prints of the day, fast- 
ened on his heart, and threw him into the slow 
fever of which he died. 

Nor was Cummyns the only valuable mem- 
ber so lost to society : Hawkesworth, the pious, 
the virtuous, and the wise, for want of that for- 
titude which casts a shield before the merits of 
his friend, fell a lamented sacrifice to wanton 
malice and cruelty, I know not how provoked; 
but all in turn feel the lash of censure in a coun- 
try where, as every baby is allowed to carry a 
whip, no person can escape except by chance. 
The unpublished crimes, unknown distresses, 
and even death itself, however, daily occurring 
in less liberal governments and less free nations, 
soon teach one to content one's self with such 
petty grievances, and make one acknowledge 



144 ANECDOTES OF 

that the undistinguishing severity of newspaper 
abuse may in some measure dimmish the diffu- 
sion of vice aud folly in Great Britain, and 
while they fright delicate minds into forced 
refinements and affected insipidity, they are 
useful to the great causes of virtue in the soul, 
and liberty in the state ; and though sensibility 
often sinks under the roughness of their pre- 
scriptions, it would be no good policy to take 
away their licence. 

Knowing the state of Mr. Johnson's nerves, 
and how easily they were affected, I forbore 
reading in a new magazine one day, the death 
of a Samuel Johnson who expired that month; 
but my companion snatching up the book, saw 
it himself, and, contrary to my expectation— 
" Oh ! (said he,) I hope Death will now be 
glutted with Sam. Johnsons, and let me alone 
for some time to come : I read of another 
namesake's departure last week."— Though 
Mr. Johnson was commonly affected even to 
agony at the thoughts of a friend's dying, he 
troubled himself very little with the complaints 
they might make to him about ill health. 
" Dear doctor (said he one day to a common 
acquaintance, who lamented the tender state 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 145 

of his inside), do not be like the spider, man ; 
and spin conversation thus incessantly out of 
thy own bowels." — I told him of another friend 
who suffered grievously with the gout — " He 
will live a vast many years for all that (replied 
he), and then what signifies how much he suf- 
fers ? but he will die at last, poor fellow, there's 
the misery ; gout seldom takes the fort by a 
coup-de-main, but turning the siege into a 
blockade, obliges it to surrender at discretion." 

A lady he thought well of, was disordered 
in her health — " What help has she called 
in ?" inquired Johnson. Dr. James, sir : was 
the reply. " What is her disease ?" Oh, no- 
thing positive, rather a gradual and gentle 
decline. " She will die then, pretty dear ! 
(answered he ;) when Death's pale horse runs 
away with a person on full speed, an active 
physician may possibly give them a turn ; but 
if he carries them on an even slow pace, down 
hill too ! no care nor skill can save them !" 

When Garrick was on his last sick-bed, no 
arguments or recitals of such facts as I had 
heard, would persuade Mr. Johnson of his dan- 
ger : he had prepossessed himself with a notion, 
that to say a man was sick, was very near wish- 

L 



146 ANECDOTES OF 

ing him so ; and few things offended him more, 
than prognosticating even the death of an ordi- 
nary acquaintance. " Ay, ay (said he), Swift 
knew the world pretty well, when he said, that 

Some dire misfortune to portend, 
No enemy can match a friend.*' 

The danger then of Mr. Garrick, or of Mr. 
Thrale, whom he loved better, was an image 
which no one durst present before his view; 
he always persisted in the possibility and hope 
of their recovering disorders from which no 
human creatures by human means alone ever 
did recover. His distress for their loss was 
for that very reason poignant to excess : but 
his fears of his own salvation were excessive : 
his truly tolerant spirit, and Christian charity, 
which hopeth all things, and believeth all things, 
made him rely securely on the safety of his 
friends, while his earnest aspiration after a 
blessed immortality made him cautious of his 
own steps, and timorous concerning their con- 
sequences. He knew how much had been gi- 
ven, and filled his mind with fancies of how 
much would be required, till his impressed 
imagination was often disturbed by them, and 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 147 

his health suffered from the sensibility of his 
too tender conscience : a real Christian is so 
apt to find his task above his power of per- 
formance ! 

Mr. Johnson did not however give into ridi- 
culous refinements either of speculation or 
practice, or suffer himself to be deluded by 
specious appearances. " I have had dust 
thrown in my eyes too often (would he say) to 
be blinded so. Let us never confound matters 
of belief with matters of opinion." — Some one 
urged in his presence the preference of hope to 
possession ; and, as I remember, produced an 
Italian sonnet on the subject. " Let us not 
(cries Johnson) amuse ourselves with subtilties 
and sonnets, when speaking about hope, which 
is the follower of faith and the precursor of 
eternity ; but if you only mean those air-built 
hopes which to-day excites and to-morrow 
will destroy, let us talk away, and remember 
that we only talk of the pleasures of hope; we 
feel those of possession, and no man in his 
senses would change the last for the first : such 
hope is a mere bubble, that by a gentle breath 
may be blown to what size you will almost, 
but a rough blast bursts it at once. Hope is 

l 3 



148 ANECDOTES 01* 

an amusement rather than a good, and adapted 
to none but very tranquil minds." The truth 
is, Mr. Johnson hated what we call unprofita- 
ble chat ; and to a gentleman who had disser- 
ted some time about the natural history of the 
mouse — " I wonder what such a one would 
have said (cried Johnson), if he had ever had 
the luck to see a lion /" 

I well remember that at Brighthelmstone 
once, when he was not present, Mr. Beauclerc 
asserted that he was afraid of spirits ; and 1, 
who was secretly offended at the charge, asked 
him, the first opportunity I could find, what 
ground he had ever given to the world for such 
a report ? " I can (replied he) recollect no- 
thing nearer it, than my telling Dr. Lawrence 
many years ago, that a. long time after my 
poor mother's death, I heard her voice call 
Sam /" What answer did the doctor make to 
jour story, sir? said I. "None in the world," 
replied he ; and suddenly changed the conver- 
sation. Now as Mr. Johnson had a most un- 
shaken faith, without any mixture of credulity, 
this story must either have been strictly true, 
or his persuasion of its truth the effect of dis- 
ordered spirits. I relate the anecdote pre- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 149 

cisely as he told it me ; but could not prevail 
on him to draw out the talk into length for 
farther satisfaction of my curiosity. 

As Johnson was the firmest of believers with- 
out being credulous, so he was the most cha- 
ritable of mortals without being what we call 
an active friend. Admirable at giving counsel 
no man saw his way so clearly ; but he would 
not stir a finger for the assistance of those to 
whom he was willing enough to give advice : 
besides that, he had principles of laziness, and 
could be indolent by rule. To hinder your 
death, or procure you a dinner, I mean if 
really in want of one, his earnestness, his ex- 
ertions, could not be prevented, though health 
and purse and ease were all destroyed by their 
violence. * If you wanted a slight favour, you 
must apply to people of other dispositions ; for 
not a step would Johnson move to obtain a man 
a vote in a society, to repay a compliment 
which might be useful or pleasing, to write a 
letter of request, or to obtain a hundred pounds 
a-year more for a friend, who perhaps had al- 
ready two or three. No force could urge him 
to diligence, no importunity could conquer his 
resolution of standing stilL "What good are 



150 ANECDOTES OF 

we doing with all this ado ? (would he say ;) 
dearest lady, let's hear no more of it !" I have, 
however, more than once in my life forced him 
on such services, but with extreme difficulty. 

We parted at his doer one evening when I 
had teazed him for many weeks to write a re- 
commendatory letter of a little boy to his school- 
master: and after he had faithfully promised 
to do this prodigious feat before we met again — 
Do not forget dear Dick, sir, said I, as he went 
out of the coach : he turned back, stood still 
two minutes on the carriage step — " When I 
have written my letter for Dick, I may hang 
myself, mayn't I ?" — and turned away in a very 
ill humour indeed. 

Though apt enough to take sudden likings or 
aversions to people he occasionally met, he 
would never hastily pronounce upon their cha» 
racter ; and when, seeing him justly delighted 
with Solander's conversation, I observed once 
that he was a man of great parts, who talked 
from a full mind— " It may be so (said Mr. 
Johnson), but you cannot know it yet, nor I 
neither : the $ pump works well, to be sure ; 
but how, I wonder, are we to decide in so very 
short an acquaintance, whether it is supplied 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 151 

by a spring or a reservoir I" — He always made 
a great difference in his esteem between talents 
and erudition ; and when he saw a person emi- 
nent for literature, though wholly unconversi- 
ble, it fretted him. " Teaching such tonies 
(said he to me one day) is like setting a lady's 
diamonds in lead, which only obscures the 
lustre of the stone, and makes the possessor 
ashamed on't." Useful and what we call 
every-day knowledge had the most of his just 
praise. ■ ■ Let your boy learn arithmetic, dear 
madam," was his advice to the mother of a 
rich young heir : <f he will not then be a prey 
to every rascal which this town swarms with : 
teach him the value of money and how to 
reckon it : ignorance to a wealthy lad of one- 
and-twenty, is only so much fat to a sick sheep : 
it just serves to call the rooks about him." 

And all that prey in vice or folly 

Joy to see their quarry fly ; 
Here the gamester light and jolly, 

There the lender grave and sly. 

These improviso lines, making part of a long 
copy of verses which my regard for the youth 
on whose birth-day they were written obliges 
me to suppress, lest they should give him pain, 



152 ANECDOTES OF 

shew a mind of surprising activity and warmth ; 
the more so as he was past seventy years of 
age when he composed them ; but nothing 
more certainly offended Mr. Johnson, than the 
idea of a man's faculties (mental ones I mean) 
decaying by time ; " It is not true, sir (would 
he say) ; what a man could once do, he would 
always do, unless indeed by dint of vicious in- 
dolence, and compliance with the nephews and 
nieces who crowd round an old fellow, and 
help to tuck him in, till he, contented with the 
exchange of fame for ease, e'en resolves to let 
them set the pillows at his back, and gives no 
farther proof of his existence than just to suck 
the jelly that prolongs it." 

For such a life or such a death Dr. Johnson 
was indeed never intended by Providence : his 
mind was like a warm climate, which brings 
every thing to perfection suddenly and vigo- 
rously, not like the alembicated productions of 
artificial fire, which always betray the difficul- 
ty of bringing them forth when their size is 
disproportionate to their flavour. Je ferois un 
Roman tout comme un autre, mais la vie nest 
point un Roman, says a famous French writer ; 
and this was so certainly the opinion of the 



Bit. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 153 

author of the Rambler, that all his conversation 
precepts tended towards the dispersion of ro- 
mantic ideas, and were chiefly intended to 
promote the cultivation of 

That which before thee lies in daily life.— Milton. 

And when he talked of authors, his praise 
went spontaneously to such passages as are 
sure in his own phrase to leave something be- 
hind them useful on common occasions, or ob- 
servant of common manners. For example, it 
was not the two last, but the two first, volumes 
of Clarissa that he prized ; " For give me a sick- 
bed, and a dying lady (said he), and I'll be 
pathetic myself: but Richardson had picked 
the kernel of life (he said), while Fielding was 
contented with the husk." — It was not King 
Lear cursing his daughters, or deprecating the 
storm, that I remember his commendations of; 
butlago's ingenious malice, and subtle revenge ; 
or prince Hal's gay compliance with the vices 
of Falstaff, whom he all along despised. Those 
plays had indeed no rivals in Johnson's favour : 
" No man but Shakspeare (he said) could have 
$rawn sir John, " 

JBis manner of criticising and commending 



154 ANECDOTES OF 

Addison's prose, was the same in conversation 
as we read it in the printed strictures, and many 
of the expressions used have been heard to fall 
from him on common occasions. It was not- 
withstanding observable enough (or I fancied 
so), that he did never like, though he always 
thought fit, to praise it; and his praises resem- 
bled those of a man who extols the superior 
elegance of high-painted porcelain, while he 
himself always chooses to eat off plate. I told 
him so one day, and he neither denied it nor 
appeared displeased. 

Of the pathetic in poetry he never liked to 
speak, and the only passage I ever heard him 
applaud as particularly tender in any common 
book, was Jane Shore's exclamation in the 
last act, 

Forgive me ! but forgive me ! 

It was not however from the want of a sus- 
ceptible heart that he hated to cite tender ex- 
pressions, for he was more strongly and more 
violently affected by the force of words repre- 
senting ideas capable of affecting him at all, 
than any other man in the world, I believe ; 
and when he would try to repeat the celebrated 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 155 

Frosa Ecclesiastica pro Mortuis, as it is called, 
beginning Dies irce, Dies ilia, he could never 
pass the stanza ending thus, Tantus labor non 
sit cassus, without bursting into a flood of tears ; 
which sensibility I used to quote against him 
when he would inveigh against devotional 
poetry, and protest that all religious verses 
were cold and feeble, and unworthy the subject, 
which ought to be treated with higher reve- 
rence, he said, than either poets or painters 
could presume to excite or bestow. Nor can 
any thing be a stronger proof of Dr. Johnson's 
piety than such an expression ; for his idea of 
poetry was magnificent indeed, and very fully 
was he persuaded of its superiority over every 
other talent bestowed by heaven on man. His 
chapter upon that particular subject in his Ras- 
selas, is really written from the fulness of his 
heart, and quite in his best manner I think. I 
am not so sure that this is the proper place to 
mention his writing that surprising little volume 
in a week or ten days' time, in order to obtain 
money for his journey to Litchfield when his 
jnother lay upon her last sick-bed. 

Promptitude of thought indeed, and quick- 
ness of expression, were among the peculiar 



156 ANECDOTES OF 

felicities of Johnson : his notions rose up like 
the dragon's teeth sowed by Cadmus all ready- 
clothed, and in bright armour too, fit for imme- 
diate battle. He was therefore (as somebody 
is said to have expressed it) a tremendous con- 
verser, and few people ventured to try their 
skill against an antagonist with whom conten- 
tion was so hopeless. One gentleman, how- 
ever, who dined at a nobleman's house in his 
company and that of Mr. Thrale, to whom I 
was obliged for the anecdote, was willing to 
enter the lists in defence of king William's cha- 
racter, and having opposed and contradicted 
Johnson two or three times petulantly enough ; 
the master of the house began to feel uneasy, 
and expect disagreeable consequences : to avoid 
which he said, loud enough for the Doctor to 
hear, Our friend here as no meaning now in all 
this, except just to relate at club to-morrow 
how he teased Johnson at dinner to-day — this 
is all to do himself honour. No, upon my word, 
replied the other, 1 see no honour in it, what- 
ever you may do. "Well, sir! (returned Mr. 
Johnson sternly,) if you do not see the honour, 
I am sure I feel the disgrace" 

A young fellow, less confident of his own 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 157 

ubilities, lamenting one day that he had lost 
all his Greek — " I believe it happened at the 
same time, sir, (said Johnson), that I lost all 
my large estate in Yorkshire," 

But however roughly he might be suddenly 
provoked to treat a harmless exertion of vanity, 
he did not wish to inflict the pain he gave, and 
was sometimes very sorry when he perceived 
the people to smart more than they deserved. 
How harshly you treated that man to-day, said 
I once, who harangued us so about gardening — 
"lam sorry (said he) if I vexed the creature, 
for there certainly is no harm in a fellow's 
rattling a rattle-box, only don't let him think 
that he thunders." — The Lincolnshire lady, 
who shewed him a grotto she had been ma- 
king, came off no better, as I remember: 
Would it not be a pretty cool habitation in 
summer, said she, Mr. Johnson ? "I think it 
would, madam (replied he), for a toad." 

All desire of distinction indeed had a sure 
enemy in Mr. Johnson. We met a friend 
driving six very small ponies, and stopped to 
admire them. "Why does nobody (said our 
Doctor) begin the fashion of driving six spa- 
vined horses, all spavined of the same leg ? it 



158 ANECDOTES OF 

would have a mighty pretty effect, and produce 
the distinction of doing something worse than 
the common way." 

When Mr. Johnson had a mind to compli- 
ment any one, he did it with more dignity to 
himself, and better effect upon the company, 
than any man. I can recollect but few in- 
stances indeed, though perhaps that may be 
more my fault than his. When sir Joshua 
Reynolds left the room one day, he said, 
" There goes a man not to be spoiled by pros- 
perity." And when Mrs. Mpntague shewed 
him some China plates which had once belong- 
ed to queen Elizabeth, he told her, " that they 
had no reason to be ashamed of their present 
possessor, who was so little inferior to the first." 
I likewise remember that he pronounced one 
day at my house a most lofty panegyric upon 
Jones the orientalist, who seemed little pleased 
with the praise, for what cause I know not. 
He was not at all offended, when, compairing 
all our acquaintance to some animal or other, 
we pitched upon the elephant for his resem- 
blance, adding, that the proboscis of that crea- 
ture was like his mind most exactly, strong to 
buffet even the tiger, and pliable to pick up 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 159 

even the pin. The truth is, Mr. Johnson was 
often good-humouredly willing to join in child- 
ish amusements, and hated to be left out of any- 
innocent merriment, that was going forward. 
Mr. Murphy always said, he was incomparable 
at buffoonery ; and I verily think, if he had 
had good eyes, and a form less inflexible, he 
would have made an admirable mimic. 

He certainly rode on Mr. Thrale's old hun- 
ter with a good firmness, and though he would 
follow the hounds fifty miles an end sometimes, 
would never own himself either tired or amu- 
sed. " I have now learned (said he), by 
hunting, to perceive, that it is no diversion at 
all, nor ever takes a man out of himself for a 
moment : the dogs have less sagacity than I 
could have prevailed on myself to suppose ; 
and the gentlemen often call to me not to ride 
over them. It is very strange, and very melan- 
choly, that the paucity of human pleasures 
should persuade us ever to call hunting one of 
them."— He was however proud to be amongst 
the sportsmen ; and I think no praise ever 
went so close to his heart, as when Mr. 
Hamilton called out one day upon Bright- 
helmstone Downs, "Why Johnson rides as well 



160 ANECDOTES OF 

for aught I see, as the most illiterate fellow in 
England. 

Though Dr. Johnson owed his very life to- 
air and exercise, given him when his organs of 
respiration could scarcely play, in the year 
1766, yet he ever persisted in the notion, that 
neither of them had any thing to do with health. 
"People live as long (said he) in Pepper-alley 
as on Salisbury-plain; and they live so much 
happier, that an inhabitant of the first would, 
if he turned cottager, starve his understanding 
for want of conversation, and perish in a state 
of mental inferiority." 

Mr. Johnson indeed, as he was a very talk- 
ing man himself, had an idea that nothing pro- 
moted happiness so much as conversation. A 
friend's erudition was commended one day as 
equally deep and strong — "He will not talk, 
sir (was the reply), so his learning does no good, 
and his wit, if he has it, gives us no pleasure : 
out of all his boasted stores I never heard him 
force but one word, and that word was Rich- 
ard!" — With a contempt not inferior he recei- 
ved the praises of a pretty lady's face and beha- 
viour: "She says nothing, sir (answers John- 
son) ; a talking blackamoor were better than a 



t>R. SAMUEL JOHNSOtf. 161 

white creature who adds nothing to life — and 
sitting down before one thus desperately silent, 
takes away the confidence one should have in 
the company of her chair if she were once out 
of it." — No one was however less willing to 
begin any discourse than himself: his friend 
Mr. Thomas Tyers said, he was like the ghosts, 
who never speak till they are spoken to : and 
he liked the expression so well, that he often 
repeated it. He had indeed no necessity to 
lead the stream of chat to a favourite channel, 
that his fullness on the subject might be shewn 
more clearly, whatever was the topic ; and he 
usually left the choice to others. His informa- 
tion best enlightened, his argument strength- 
ened, and his wit made it ever remembered. 
Of him it might have been said, as he often 
delighted to say of Edmund Burke, ' ' that you 
could not stand five minutes with that man be- 
neath a shed while it rained, but you must be 
convinced you had been standing with the 
greatest man you had ever yet seen." 

As we had been saying one day that no sub- 
ject failed of receiving dignity from the manner 
in which Mr. Johnson treated it, a lady at my 
house said, she would make him talk about 

M 



162 ANECDOTES OF 

love ; and took her measures accordingly, de- 
riding the novels of the day because they treated 
about love. " It is not (replied our philoso- 
pher) because they treat, as you call it, about 
love, but because they treat of nothing, that 
they are despicable : we must not ridicule a 
passion which he who never felt never was 
happy, and he who laughs at never deserves to 
feel — a passion which has caused the change of 
empires, and the loss of worlds—a passion 
which has inspired heroism and subdued ava- 
rice." He thought he had already said too 
much. " A passion, in short (added he, with 
an altered tone), that consumes me away for 
my pretty Fanny here, and she is very cruel," 
speaking of another lady in the room. He 
told us however in the course of the same chat, 
how his negro Francis had been eminent for 
his success among the girls. Seeing us all 
laugh, " I must have you know, ladies (said 
he), that Frank has carried the empire of Cupid 
farther than most men. When I was in Lin- 
colnshire so many years ago, he attended me 
thither ; and when we returned home together, 
I found that a female haymaker had followed 
him to London for love." Francis was indeed 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 163 

no small favourite with his master, who re- 
tained however a prodigious influence over his 
most violent passions. 

On the birth-day of our eldest daughter, and 
that of our friend Dr. Johnson, the 17th and 
18th of September, we every year made up a 
little dance and supper, to divert our servants 
and their friends, putting the summer-house 
into their hands for the two evenings, to fill 
with acquaintance and merriment. Francis 
and his white wife were invited of course. 
She was eminently pretty, and he was jealous, 
as my maids told me. On the first of these 
days' amusements (I know not what year) Frank 
took offence at some attentions paid his Des- 
demona, and walked away next morning to 
London in wrath. His master and I driving 
the same road an hour after, overtook him. 
" What is the matter, child (says Dr. Johnson), 
that you leave Streatham to-day ? Art sick V* 
He is jealous, whispered I, " Are you jealous 
of your wife, you stupid blockhead?" cries 
out his master in another tone. The fellow 
hesitated ; and, To be sure sir, I dortt 
quite approve sir, was the stammering reply. 
" Why, what do they do to her, man ? 
M 2 



l64f ANECDOTES OF 

do the footmen kiss her ?" No sir, no! — Kiss 
my wife sir ! — / hope not sir. " Why, what do 
they do to her, my lad ?" Why nothing sir, 
I'm sure sir. "Why then go back directly 
and dance you dog, do ; and let's hear no more 
of such empty lamentations." I believe how- 
ever that Francis was scarcely as much the 
object of Mr. Johnson's personal kindness, as 
the representative of Dr. Bathurst, for whose 
sake he would have loved any body, or any 
thing, 

When he spoke of negroes, he always ap- 
peared to think them of a race naturally in- 
ferior, and made few exceptions in favour of 
his own ; yet whenever disputes arose in his 
household among the many odd inhabitants of 
which it consisted, he always sided with Fran- 
cis against the others, whom he suspected (not 
unjustly I believe) of greater malignity. It 
seems at once vexatious and comical to reflect, 
that the dissensions those people chose to live 
constantly in, distressed and mortified him ex- 
ceedingly. He really was oftentimes afraid of 
going home, because he was so sure to be met 
at the door with numberless complaints ; and 
he used to lament pathetically to me, and to 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. l65 

Mr, Sastres, the Italian master, who was much 
his favourite, that they made his life miserable 
from the impossibility he found of making theirs 
happy, when every favour he bestowed on one 
was wormwood to the rest. If however I ven- 
ture4 to blame their ingratitude, and condemn 
their conduct, he would instantly set about 
softening the one and justifying the other ; and 
finished commonly by telling me, that I knew 
not Jiow to make allowances for situations I 
never experienced. 

To thee no reason who know'st only good, 
But evil hast not tried. Milton. 

Dr Johnson knew how to be merry with mean 
people too, as well as to be sad with them ; he 
loved the lower ranks of humanity with a real 
affection : and though his talents and learning 
kept him always in the sphere of upper life, yet 
he nevet lost sight of the time when he and they 
shared pain and pleasure in common. A bo- 
rough election once shewed me his toleration 
of boisterous mirth, and his content in the com- 
pany of people whom one would have thought 
at first sight little calculated for his society. 
A rough fellow one day on such an occasion, 



166 ANECDOTES OF 

a hatter by trade, seeing Mr. Johnson's beaver 
in a state of decay, seized it suddenly with one 
hand, and clapping him on the back with the 
other ; Ah, master Johnson (says he), this is no 
time to be thinking about hats. " No, no, sir 
(replies our Doctor in a cheerful tone), hats 
are of no use now, as you say, except to throw 
up in the air and huzza with;" accompanying 
his words with the true election halloo. 

But it was never against people of coarse 
life that his contempt was expressed, while po- 
verty of sentiment in men who considered 
themselves to be company for the parlour, as 
he called it, was what he would not bear. A 
very ignorant young fellow, who had plagued 
us all for nine or ten months, died at last con- 
sumptive : "I think (said Mr. Johnson when 
he heard the news), I am afraid, I should have 
been more concerned for the death of the dog; 

but (hesitating awhile) I am not wrong now 

in all this, for the dog acted up to his character 
on every occasion that we know; but that 
dunce of a fellow helped forward the general 
disgrace of humanity." Why dear sir (said I), 
how odd you are ! you have often said the lad 
was not capable of receiving farther instruc? 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 167 

tion. " He was (replied the Doctor) like a cor- 
ked bottle, with a drop of dirty water in it, to 
be sure ; one might pump upon it for ever 
without the smallest effect ; but when every 
method to open and clean it had been tried, 
you would not have me grieve that the bottle 
was broke at last." 

This was the same youth who told us he had 
been reading Lucius Florus; Florus Delphini 
was the phrase : and, my mother (said he) 
thought it had something to do with Delphos ; 
but of that I know nothing. Who founded 
Rome then? inquired Mr. Thrale. The lad 
replied, Romulus. And who succeeded Ro- 
mulus ? said I. A long pause, and apparently 
distressful hesitation, followed the difficult 
question. " Why will you ask him in terms 
that he does not comprehend ? (said Mr. John- 
son enraged.) You might as well bid him tell 
you who phlebotomized Romulus. This fel- 
low's dulness is elastic (continued he), and all 
we do is but like kicking at a woolsack." 

The pains he took however to obtain the 
young man more patient instructors, were 
many, and oftentimes repeated. He was put 
under the care of a clergyman in a distant 



168 ANECDOTES OF 

province ; and Mr. Johnson used both to write 
and talk to his friend concerning his education. 
It was on that occasion that I remember his 
saying, " A boy should never be sent to Eton 
or Westminster school before he is twelve years 
old at least ; for if in his years of babyhood he 
^scapes that general and transcendant know- 
ledge without which life is perpetually put to 
a stand, he will never get it at a public school, 
where if he does not learn Latin and Greek, 
he learns nothing." Mr. Johnson often said, 
" that there was too much stress laid upon li- 
terature as indispensably necessary : there is 
surely no need that every body should be a 
scholar, no call that every one should square 
the circle. Our manner of teaching (said he) 
cramps and warps many a mind, which if left 
more at liberty would have been respectable 
in some way, though perhaps not in that. We 
lop our trees, and prune them, and pinch them 
about (he would say), and nail them tight up 
to the wall, while a good standard is at last 
the only thing for bearing healthy fruit, though 
it commonly begins later. Let the people 
learn necessary knowledge : let them learn to 
count their fingers, and to count their money. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 169 

before they are caring for the classics ; for 
(says Mr. Johnson) though I do not quite 
agree with the proverb, that Nullum numen 
abest si sit prudentia, yet we may very well say, 
that Nullum numen adest — ni sit prudentia." 

We had been visiting at a lady's house, 
whom as we returned some of the company ri- 
diculed for her ignorance: "She is not igno- 
rant (said he), I believe, of any thing she has 
been taught, or of any thing she is desirous to 
know ; and I suppose if one wanted a little 
run tea, she might be a proper person enough 
to apply to/' 

When I relate these various instances of 
contemptuous behaviour shewn to a variety of 
people, I am aware that those who till now 
have heard little of Mr. Johnson will here cry 
out against his pride and his severity ; yet I 
have been as careful as I could to tell them, 
that all he did was gentle, if all he said was 
rough. Had I given anecdotes of his actions 
instead of his words, we should I am sure have 
had nothing on record but acts of virtue dif- 
ferently modified, as different occasions called 
that virtue forth : and among all the nine bio- 
graphical essays or performances which I have 



170 ANECDOTES OF 

heard will at last be written about dear. Dr. 
Johnson, no mean or wretched, no wicked or 
even slightly culpable action will I trust be 
found, to produce and put in the scale against 
a life of seventy years, spent in the uniform 
practice of every moral excellence and every 
Christian perfection, save humility alone, says 
a critic ; but that I think must be excepted. 
He was not however wanting even in that to a 
degree seldom attained by man, when the du- 
ties of piety or charity called it forth. 

Lowly towards God, and docile towards the 
church ; implicit in his belief of the gospel, 
and ever respectful towards the poople appoin- 
ted to preach it ; tender of the unhappy, and 
affectionate to the poor, let no one hastily 
condemn as proud, a character which may 
perhaps somewhat justly be censured as arro- 
gant. It must however be remembered again, 
that even this arrogance was never shewn 
without some intention, immediate or remote, 
of mending some fault or conveying some in- 
struction. Had I meant to make a panegyric 
on Mr. Johnson's well-known excellences, I 
should have told his deeds only, not his words 
— sincerely protesting, that as I never saw 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 171 

him- once' do a wrong thing, so we had accus- 
tomed ourselves to look upon him almost as 
an excepted being; and I should as much 
have expected injustice from Socrates or im- 
piety from Paschal, as the slightest deviation 
from truth and goodness in any transaction 
one might be engaged in with Samuel Johnson. 
His attention to veracity was without equal or 
example : and when 1 mentioned Clarissa as a 
perfect character ; " On the contrary (said he), 
you may observe there is always something 
which she prefers to truth. Fielding's Amelia 
was the most pleasing heroine of all the ro- 
mances (he said) ; but that vile broken nose 
never cured, ruined the sale of perhaps the 
only book, which being printed off betimes one 
morning, a new edition was called for before 
night." 

Mr. Johnson ? s knowledge of literary history 
was extensive and surprising : he knew every 
adventure of every book you could name al- 
most, and was exceedingly pleased with the 
opportunity which writing the Poets' Lives 
gave him to display it. He loved to be set at 
work, and was sorry when he came to the end 
of the business he was about. I do not feel 
so myself with regard to these sheets : a fever 



172 ANECDOTES OF 

which has preyed on me while I wrote them 
over for the press, will perhaps lessen my 
power of doing well the first, and probably the 
last work I should ever have thought of pre- 
senting to the public. I could doubtless wish 
so to conclude it, as at least to shew my zeal 
for my friend, whose life, as I once had the 
honour and happiness of being useful to, I 
should wish to record a few particular traits of, 
that those who read should emulate his good* 
ness ; but seeing the necessity of making even 
virtue and learning such as his agreeable, that 
all should be warned against such coarseness 
of manners, as drove even from him those who 
loved, honoured, and esteemed him. His wife's 
daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter of Litchfield, 
whose veneration for his person and character 
has ever been the greatest possible, being op- 
posed one day in conversation by a clergyman 
who came often to her house, and feeling 
somewhat offended, cried out suddenly, Why, 
Mr. Pearson you are just like Dr. Johnson, I 
think : I do not mean that you are a man of 
the greatest capacity in all the world, like Dr. 
Johnson, but that you contradict one every 
word one speaks, just like him. 

Mr. Johnson, told me the story : he was 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON • 173 

present at the giving of the reproof. It was 
however observable, that with all his odd seve- 
rity, he could not keep even indifferent people 
from teasing him with unaccountable confes- 
sions of silly conduct, which one would think 
they would scarcely have had inclination to re- 
veal even to their tenderest and most intimate 
companions ; and it was from these unaccount- 
able volunteers in sincerity that he learned to 
warn the world against follies little known, 
and seldom thought on by other moralists. 

Much of his eloquence and much of his logic, 
have I heard him use to prevent men from 
making vows on trivial occasions ; and when he 
saw a person oddly perplexed about a slight 
difficulty, " Let the man alone (he would say), 
and torment him no more about it; there is a 
vow in the case, I am convinced ; but is it not 
very strange that people should be neither 
afraid nor ashamed of bringing in God Almigh- 
ty thus at every turn between themselves and 
their dinner?" When I asked what ground he 
had for such imaginations, he informed me, 
"That a young lady once told him in confi- 
dence, that she could never persuade herself to 
be dressed against the bell rung for dinner, till 



174 ANECDOTES OF 

she had made a vow to Heaven that she would 
never more be absent from the family meals." 

The strangest applications in the world were 
certainly made from time to time towards Mr. 
Johnson, who by that means had an inexhaus- 
tible fund of anecdote, and could, if he pleased, 
tell the most astonishing stories of human folly 
and human weakness that ever were confided 
to any man not a confessor by profession. 

One day when he was in a humour to record 
some of them, he told us the following tale: 
" A person (said he) had for these last five 
weeks often called at my door, but would not 
leave his name, or other message ; but that he 
wished to speak with me. At last we met, and 
he told me that he was oppressed by scruples 
of conscience : I blamed him gently for not ap- 
plying, as the rules of our church direct, to his 
parish priest, or other discreet clergyman ; 
when, after some compliments on his part, he 
told me, that he was clerk to a very eminent 
trader, at whose warehouses much business 
consisted in packing goods in order to go abroad : 
that he was often tempted to take paper and 
packthread enough for his own use, and that 
he had indeed done so so often, that he could 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 175 

recollect no time when he ever had bought any 
for himself. — But probably (said I) your mas* 
ter was wholly indifferent with regard to such 
trivial emoluments ; you had better ask for it 
at once, and so take your trifles with consent. — > 
Oh, sir ! replies the visitor, my master bid me 
have as much as I pleased, and was half angry 
when I talked to him about it. — Then pray, 
sir (said I), tease me no more about such airy 
nothings ; — and was going on to be very angry, 
when I recollected that the fellow might be mad 
perhaps ; so I asked him, when he left the 
counting-house of an evening? — At seven 
o'clock, sir. — And when do you go to bed, 
sir? — At twelve o'clock. — Then (replied I) I 
have at least learned thus much by my new 
acquaintance — that five hours of the four-and- 
twenty unemployed are enough for a man to go 
mad in : so I would advise you sir to study alge- 
bra, if you are not an adept already in it : your 
head would get less muddy 9 and you will leave 
off tormenting your neighbours about paper 
and packthread, while we all live together in a 
world that is bursting with sin and sorrow. — ■ 
It is perhaps needless to add that this visitor 
came no more." 



176 ANECDOTES OF 

Mr. Johnson had indeed a real abhorrence of 
a person that had ever before him treated 
a little thing like a great one : and he quoted 
this scrupulous gentleman with his packthread 
very often, in ridicule of a friend who, looking 
out on Streatham-common from our windows 
one day, lamented the enormous wickedness of 
the times, because some bird-catchers were busy 
there one fine Sunday morning. Ci While half the 
Christian world is permitted (said he) to dance 
and sing, and celebrate Sunday as a day of 
festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so 
offended with frivolous and empty deviations 
from exactness ? Whoever loads life with unne- 
cessary scruples, sir (continued he), provokes 
the attention of others on his conduct, and in- 
curs the censure of singularity without reaping 
the reward of superior virtue." 

I must not among the anecdotes of Dr. John- 
son's life, omit to relate a thing that happened 
to him one day, which he told me of himself. 
As he was walking along the Strand a gentle- 
man stepped out of some neighbouring tavern, 
with his napkin in his hand and no hat, and 
stopping him as civilly as he could — I beg your 
pardon, sir; but you are Dr. Johnson, I believe* 



1)11. SAMUEL JOHNSOtf. 177 

c * Yes, sir." We have a wager depending on 
your reply : Pray, sir, is it irreparable or irre- 
parable that one should say ? " The last I think, 
sir (answered Dr> Johnson), for the adverb 
ought to follow the verb ; but you had better 
consult my Dictionary than me, for that was 
the result of more thought than you will now 
give me time for." No, no, replied the gen- 
tleman gaily, the book I have no certainty at 
all of; but here is the author, to whom I re- 
ferred : is he not sir ? to a friend with him : I 
have won my twenty guineas quite fairly, and 
am much obliged to you, sir ; so shaking Mr. 
Johnson kindly by the hand, he went back to 
finish his dinner or dessert. 

Another strange thing he told me once, which 
there was no danger of forgetting : how a young 
gentleman called on him one morning, and told 
him that his father having, just before his death, 
dropped suddenly into the enjoyment of an 
ample fortune, he, the son, was willing to qua- 
lify himself for genteel society by adding some 
literature to his other endowments, and wished 
to be put in an easy way of obtaining it. 
Johnson recommended the university ; " fof 
you read Latin * sir, with jto7%." I read it a 

N 



178 ANECDOTES OF 

little to be sure, sir. "But do you read it with 
facility, I say ?" Upon my word, sir, I do not 
very well know/ but I rather believe not. Mr. 
Johnson now began to recommend^ other 
branches of science, when he found languages 
zk such an immeasurable distance, and advising 
him to study natural history, there arose some 
talk about animals, and their divisions into 
oviparous and viviparous ; And the cat here, 
sir, said the youth who wished for instruction, 
pray in which class is she ? Our Doctor's pa- 
tience and desire of doing good began now to 
give way to the natural roughness of his tem- 
per. " You would do well (said he) to look 
for some person to be always about you, sir, 
who is capable of explaining such matters, and 
not come to us (there were some literary friends 
present as I recollect) to know whether the 
cat lays eggs or not : get a discreet man to 
keep you company, there are so many who 
would be glad of your table and fifty pounds a 
year." The young gentleman retired, and in 
less than a week informed his friends, that he 
had fixed on a preceptor to whom no objections" 
could be made ; but when he named as such 
one of the most distinguished characters in our 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 179 

age or nation, Mr. Johnson fairly gave himself 
up to an honest burst of laughter ; and seeing 
this youth at such a surprising distance from 
common knowledge of the world, or of any 
thing in it, desired to see his visitor no more. 

He had not much better luck with two boys 
that he used to tell of, to whom he had taught 
the classics, *' so that (he said) they were no 
incompetent or mean scholars ;" it was neces- 
sary however that something more familial 
should be known, and he bid them read the 
history of England. After a few months had 
elapsed he asked them, " if they could recol- 
lect who first destroyed the monasteries in our 
island?" One modestly replied, that he did 
not know ; the other said Jesus Christ, 

Of the truth of stories which ran currently 
about the town concerning Dr. Johnson, it was 
impossible to be certain, unless one asked him 
himself; and what he told, or suffered to be 
told before his face without contradicting, has 
every possible mark I think of real and genuine 
authenticity. I made one day very minute in- 
quiries about the tale of his knocking down, 
the famous Tom Osborne with his own Diction- 
ary in the man's own house. And how was 
N 2 



180 ANECDOTES OF 

that affair, in earnest ? do tell me, Mr. John- 
son. " There is nothing to tell, dearest lady, 
but that he was insolent and I beat him, and 
that he was a blockhead and told of it, which 
I should never have done ; so the blows have 
been multiplying, and the wonder thickening, 
for all these years, as Thomas was never a fa- 
vourite with the public. I have beat many a 
fellow, but the rest had the wit to hold their 
tongues." 

I have heard Mr. Murphy relate a very sin- 
gular story, while he was present, greatly to 
the credit of his uncommon skill and knowledge 
of life and manners : When first the Ramblers 
came out in separate numbers, as they were 
the objects of attention to multitudes of people, 
they happened, as it seems, particularly to at- 
tract the notice of a society who met every 
Saturday evening during the summer at Rom- 
ford in Essex, and were known by the name 
of the Bowling-green Club. These men seeing 
one day the character of Leviculus the fortune- 
hunter, or Tetrica the old maid : another day 
some account of a person who spent his life in 
hoping for a legacy, or of him who is always 
prying into other folks' affairs, began sure 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 181 

enough to think they were betrayed ; and that 
some of the coterie sat down to divert himself 
by giving to the public the portrait of all the 
rest. Filled with wrath against the traitor of 
Romford, one of them resolved to write to the 
printer and inquire the author's name; Samuel 
Johnson, was the reply. No more was neces- 
sary ; Samuel Johnson was the name of the 
curate, and soon did each begin to load him 
with reproaches for turning his friends into ri- 
dicule in a manner so cruel and unprovoked. 
In vain did the guiltless curate protest his in- 
nocence ; one was sure that Aligu meant Mr. 
Twigg, and that Cupidus was but another name 
for neighbour Baggs ; till the poor parson, 
unable to contend any longer, rode to London, 
and brought them full satisfaction concerning 
the writer, who from his own knowledge of 
general manners, quickened by a vigorous and 
warm imagination, had happily delineated, 
though unknown to himself, the members of 
the Bowling-green Club. 

Mr. Murphy likewise used to tell before Dr. 
Johnson, of the first time they met, and the 
occasion of their meeting, which he related 
thus : That being in those days engaged in a 



182 ANECDOTES OF 

periodical paper, he found himself at a friend's 
house out of town ; and not being disposed to 
lose pleasure for the ^ake of business, wished 
rather to content his bookseller by sending 
some unstudied essay to London by the servant, 
than deny himself the company of his acquaint- 
ance, and drive away to his chambers for the 
purpose of writing something more correct. He 
therefore took up a French Journal Literaire 
that lay about the room, and translating some- 
thing he liked from it, sent it away without 
farther examination. Time however discovered 
that he had translated from the French a Ram- 
bler of Johnson's, which had been but a month 
before taken from the English ; and thinking 
it right to make him his personal excuses, he 
went next day and found our friend all covered 
with soot like a chimney-sweeper, in a little 
room, with an intolerable heat and strange 
smell, as if he had been acting Lungs in the 
Alchymist, making ether. " Come, come, 
(says Dr. Johnson), dear Mur, the story is 
black enough now ; and it was a very happy 
day for me that brought you first to my house, 
and a very happy mistake about the Ramblers." 
Dr. Johnson was always exceeding fond of 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 183 

chemistry ; and we made up a sort of labora- 
tory at Streatham one summer, and diverted 
ourselves with drawing essences and colouring 
liquors. But the danger Mr. Thrale found his 
friend in one day when I was driven to London, 
and he had got the children and servants round 
him to see some experiments performed, put an 
end to all our entertainment ; so well was the 
master of the house persuaded, that his short 
sight would have been his destruction in a mo- 
ment, by bringing him close to a fierce and 
violent flame. Indeed it was a perpetual mi- 
racle that he did not set himself on fire reading 
a-bed, as was his constant custom, when ex- 
ceedingly unable even to keep clear of mischief 
with our best help ; and accordingly the fore- 
tops of all his wigs were burned by the candle 
down to the very net-work. Mr. Thrale's 
valet-de-chambre, for that reason, kept one 
always in his own hands, with which he met 
him at the parlour-door when the bell had 
called him down to dinner ; and as he went up 
stairs to sleep in the afternoon, the same man 
constantly followed him with another. 

Future experiments in chemistry however 
were too dangerous, and Mr. Thrale insisted 



184 ANECDOTES OF 

that we should do no more towards finding the 
philosopher's stone. 

Mr. Johnson's amusements were thus redu- 
ced to the pleasures of conversation merely : 
and what wonder that he should have an avidity 
for the sole delight he was able to enjoy? No 
man conversed so well as he on every subject; 
no man so acutely discerned the reason of 
every fact, the motive of every action, the end 
of every design. He was indeed often pained 
by the ignorance or causeless wonder of those 
who knew less than himself, though he seldom 
drove them away with apparent scorn, unless 
he thought they added presumption to stupi- 
dity : and it was impossible not to laugh at 
the patience he shewed, when a Welch parson 
of mean abilities, though a good heart, struck 
with reverence at the sight of Dr. Johnson, 
whom he had heard of as the greatest man liv- 
ing, could not find any words to answer his 
inquiries concerning a motto round somebody's 
arms which adorned a tombstone in Ruabon 
churchyard. If I remember right the words 
were, 

Ilcb Dw, Heb Dym, 
Dw o' diggon. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 185 

And though of no very difficult construction, 
the gentleman seemed wholly confounded, and 
unable to explain them ; till Mr. Johnson, ha- 
ving picked out the meaning by little and little, 
said to the man, "Heb is a preposition, I believe 
sir, is it not ?" My countryman recovering 
some spirits upon the sudden question, cried 
out, So I humbly presume sir, very comically. 
Stones of humour do not tell well in books ; 
and what made impression on the friends who 
heard a jest, will seldom much delight the dis- 
tant acquaintance or sullen critic who reads it. 
The cork model of Paris is not more despicable 
as a resemblance of a great city, than this book, 
levior cortice, as a specimen of Johnson's cha- 
racter. Yet every body naturally likes to ga- 
ther little specimens of the rarities found in a 
great country ; and could I carry home from 
Italy square pieces of all the curious marbles 
which are the just glory of this surprising part 
of the world, I could scarcely contrive perhaps 
to arrange them so meanly as not to gain some 
attention from the respect due to the places 

they once belonged to. Such a piece of 

motley mosaic work will these Anecdotes ine- 
vitably make : but let the reader remember 



186 ANECDOTES OF 

that he was promised nothing better, and so 
be as contented as he can. 

An Irish trader at our house one day heard 
Dr. Johnson launch out into very great and 
greatly-deserved praises of Mr. Edmund Burke : 
delighted to find his countryman stood so high 
in the opinion of a man he had been told so 
much of, Sir (said he), give me leave to tell 
something of Mr. Burke now. We were all 
silent, and the honest Hibernian began to re- 
late how Mr. Burke went to see the collieries 
in a distant province : and he would go down 
into the bowels of the earth (in a bag), and he 
would examine every thing; he went in a bag, 
sir, and ventured his health and his life for 
knowledge ; but he took care of his clothes, 
that they should not be spoiled, for he went 
down in a bag. " Well sir (says Mr. Johnson 
good-humouredly), if our friend Mund should 
die in any of these hazardous exploits, you and 
I would write his life and panegyric together ; 
and your chapter of it should be entitled thus — 
Burke in a bag." 

He had always a very great personal regard 
and particular affection for Mr. Edmund Burke, 
-as well as an esteem difficult for me to repeat. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 187 

though for him only easy to express. And 
when at the end of the year 1774 the general 
election called us all different ways, and broke 
up the delightful society in which we had 
spent some time at Beaconsfield, Dr. Johnson 
shook the hospitable master of the house kind- 
ly by the hand, and said, " Farewell, my dear 
sir, and remember, that I wish you all the 
success which ought to be wished you, which 
can possibly be wished you indeed — By an 
honest man,''' 

I must here take leave to observe, that in 
giving little memoirs of Mr. Johnson's beha- 
viour and conversation, such as I saw and 
heard it, my book lies under manifest disad- 
vantages, compared with theirs, who having 
seen him in various situations, and observed 
his conduct in numberless cases, are able to 
throw stronger and more brilliant lights upon 
his character. Virtues are like shrubs, which 
yield their sweets in different manners accor- 
ding to the circumstances which surround them : 
and while generosity of soul scatters its fra- 
grance like the honeysuckle, and delights the 
senses of many occasional passengers, who 
feel the pleasure, and half wonder how the 



188 ANECDOTES OF 

breeze has blown it from so far, the more sul- 
len but not less valuable myrtle waits like for- 
titude to discover its excellence, till the hand 
arrives that will crush it, and force out that 
perfume whose durability well compensates 
the difficulty of production. 

I saw Mr. Johnson in none but a tranquil 
uniform state, passing the evening* of his life 
among friends, who loved, honoured, and ad- 
mired him : I saw none of the things he did, 
except such acts of charity as have been often 
mentioned in this book, and such writings as 
are universally known. What he said is all I 
can relate ; and from what he said, those who 
think it worth while to read these Anecdotes, 
must be contented to gather his character. 
Mine is a mere candle-light picture of his latter 
days, where every thing falls in dark shadow 
except the face, the index of the mind ; but 
even that is seen unfavourably, and with a 
paleness beyond what nature gave it. 

When I have told how many follies Dr. John- 
son knew of others, I must not omit to mention 
with how much fidelity he would always have 
kept them concealed, could they of whom he 
knew the absurdities have been contented, in 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 189 

the common phrase, to keep their own counsel. 
But returning home one day from dining at the 
chaplain's table, he told me, that Dr. Goldsmith 
had given a very comical and unnecessarily ex- 
act recital there, of his own feelings when his 
play was hissed ; telling the company how he 
went indeed to the Literary Club at night, and 
chatted gaily among his friends, as if nothing 
had happened amiss ; that to impress them 
still more forcibly with an idea of his magna- 
nimity, he even sung his favourite song about 
an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen 
times as high as the moon ; but all this while 
I was suffering horrid tortures (said he), and 
verily believe that if I had put a bit into my 
mouth it would have strangled me on the spot, 
I was so excessively ill ; but I made more 
noise than usual to cover all that, and so they 
never perceived my not eating, nor I believe 
at all imaged to themselves the anguish of my 
heart : but when all were gone except Johnson 
here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore by 
— i — that I would never write again. "All 
which, doctor (says Mr. Johnson, amazed at 
his odd frankness), I thought had been a se- 
cret between you and me ; and I am sure I 



190 ANECDOTES OF 

would not have said any thing about it for the 
world. Now see (repeated he when he told 
the story) what a figure a man makes who thus 
unaccountably chooses to be the frigid narrator 
of his own disgrace. II volto sciolto, ed i pensi- 
eri stretti, was a proverb made on purpose for 
such mortals, to keep people, if possible, from 
being thus the heralds of their own shame : 
for what compassion can they gain by such 
silly narratives ? No man should be expected 
to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity. If 
then you are mortified by any ill usage, whe- 
ther real or supposed, keep at least the account 
of such mortifications to yourself, and forbear 
to proclaim how meanly you are thought on by 
others, unless you desire to be meanly thought 
of by all." 

The little history of another friend's super- 
fluous ingenuity will contribute to introduce a 
similar remark. He had a daughter of about 
fourteen years old, as I remember, fat and 
clumsy : and though the father adored, 
and desired others to adore her, yet being- 
aware perhaps that she was not what the 
French call paitrie des graces, and thinking I 
suppose that the old maxim, of beginning to 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 191 

laugh at yourself first where you have any 
thing ridiculous about you, was a good one, 
he comically enough called his girl Trundle 
when he spoke of her ; and many who bore 
neither of them any ill-will, felt disposed to 
laugh at the happiness of the appellation. 
" See now (says Dr. Johnson) what haste peo- 
ple are in to be hooted. Nobody ever thought 
of this fellow nor of his daughter, could he 
but have been quiet himself, and forborne to 
call the eyes of the world on his dowdy and 
her deformity. But it teaches one to see at 
least, that if nobody else will nickname one's 
children, the parents will e'en do it themselves." 
All this held true in matters to Mr. Johnson 
of more serious consequence. When sir Joshua 
Reynolds had painted his portrait looking into 
the slit of his pen, and holding it almost close 
to his eye, as was his general custom, he felt 
displeased, and told me, " he would not be 
known by posterity for his defects only, let sir 
Joshua do his worst." I said in reply, that 
Reynolds had no such difficulties about him- 
self, and that he might observe the picture 
which hung up in the room where we were 
talking, represented sir Joshua holding his ear 



192 ANECDOTES OF 

in his hand to catch the sound. " He may 
paint himself as deaf if he chooses (replied 
Johnson) ; but I will not be blinking Sam."'' 

It is chiefly for the sake of evincing the re- 
gularity and steadiness of Mr. Johnson's mind 
that I have given these trifling memoirs, to 
shew that his soul was not different from that 
of another person, but, as it was, greater ; and 
to give those who did not know him a just idea 
of his acquiescence in what we call vulgar 
prejudices, and of his extreme distance from 
those notions which the world has agreed, I 
know not very well why, to call romantic. It 
is indeed observable in his preface to Shak- 
speare, that while other critics expatiate on the 
creative powers and vivid imagination of that 
matchless poet, Dr. Johnson commends him 
for giving so just a representation of human 
manners, " that from his scenes a hermit might 
estimate the value of society, and a confessor 
predict the progress of the passions." I have 
not the book with me here, but am pretty sure 
that such is his expression. 

The general and constant advice he gave too, 
when consulted about the choice of a wife, a 
profession, or whatever influences a man's par- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 193 

ticular and immediate happiness, was always 
to reject no positive good from fears of its con- 
trary consequences. " Do not (said he) for- 
bear to marry a beautiful woman if you can 
find such, out of a fancy that she will be less 
constant than an ugly one ; or condemn your- 
self to the society of coarseness and vulgarity 
for fear of the expenses or other dangers of 
elegance and personal charms, which have been 
always acknowledged as a positive good, and 
for the want of which there should be always 
given some weighty compensation. I have 
however (continued Mr. Johnson) seen some 
prudent fellows who forbore to connect them- 
selves with beauty lest coquetry should be 
near, and with wit or birth lest insolence 
should lurk behind them, till they have been 
forced by their discretion to linger life away 
in tasteless stupidity, and choose to count the 
moments by remembrance of pain instead of 
enjoyment of pleasure." 

When professions were talked of, " Scorn 
(said Mr. Johnson) to put your behaviour un- 
der the dominion of canters ; never think it 
clever to call physic a mean study, or law a 
dry one ; or ask a baby of seven years old 



194* ANECDOTES ©F 

which way his genius leads him, when we all 
know that a boy of seven years old has no ge- 
nius for any thing except a peg-top and an 
apple pie; but fix on some business where 
much money may be got and little virtue risked: 
follow that business steadily, and do not live, 
as Roger Ascham says the wits do, Men knmv 
not how ; and at last die obscurely, men mark not 
ivhere" 

Dr. Johnson had indeed a veneration for the 
voice of mankind beyond what most people will 
own ; and as he liberally confessed that all his 
own disappointments proceeded from himself, 
he hated to hear others complain of general 
injustice. I remember when lamentation was 
made of the neglect shewed to Jeremiah Mark- 
land, a great philologist, as some one ventured 
to call him — " He is a scholar undoubtedly, 
sir (replied Dr. Johnson), but remember that 
he would run from the world, and that it is not 
the world's business to run after him. I hate 
a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness, 
drives into a corner, and does nothing when he 
is there but sit and growl; let him come out as 
I do, and bark. The world (added he) is chief- 
ly unjust and ungenerous in this, that all are 



DR. S^IUEL JOHNSON. 195 

ready to encourage a man who once talks of 
leaving it* and few things do really provoke me 
more, than to hear people prate of retirement, 
when they have neither skill to discern their 
own motives, nor penetration to estimate the 
consequences: but while a fellow is active to 
gain either power or wealth (continued he), 
every body produces some hinderance to his 
advancement, some sage remark, or some un- 
favourable prediction ; but let him once say 
slightly, I have had enough of this troublesome 
bustling world, 'tis time to leave it now : Ah, 
dear sir ! cries the first old acquaintance he 
meets, I am glad to find you in this happy 
disposition : yes, dear friend ! do retire and 
think of nothing but your own ease : there's 
Mr. William will find it a pleasure to settle all 
your accounts and relieve you from the fatigue; 
miss Dolly makes the charmingest chicken- 
broth in the world, and the cheesecakes we 
eat of hers once, how good they were ! I will 
be coming every two or three days myself to 
chat with you in a quiet way ; so snug ! and 
tell you how matters go upon 'Change, or in 
the House, or according to the blockhead's 
first pursuits, whether lucrative or politic, 

o 2 



196 ANECDOTES OF 

which thus he leaves , and lays himself down 
a voluntary prey to his own sensuality and 
sloth, while the ambition and avarice of the 
nephews and nieces, with their rascally adhe- 
rents and coadjutors, reap the advantage, while 
they fatten the fool." 

As the votaries of retirement had little of 
Mr. Johnson's applause, unless that he knew 
that the motives were merely devotional, and 
unless he was convinced that their rituals were 
accompanied by a mortified state of the body, 
the sole proof of their sincerity which he would 
admit, as a compensation for such fatigue as a 
worldly life of care and activity requires ; so 
of the various states and conditions of humanity, 
he despised none more I think than the man 
who marries for a maintenance : and of a friend 
who made his alliance on no higher principles, 
he said once, " Now has that fellow (it was a 
nobleman of whom we were speaking) at length 
obtained a certainty of three meals a day, and 
for that certainty, like his brother dog in the 
fable, he will get his neck galled for life with 
a collar." 

That poverty was an evil to be avoided by 
all honest means however, no man was more 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 197 

ready to avow : concealed poverty particularly, 
which he said was the general corrosive that 
destroyed the peace of almost every family ; 
to which no evening perhaps ever returned 
without some new project for hiding the sor- 
rows and dangers of the next day. " Want of 
money (says Dr. Johnson) is sometimes con- 
cealed under pretended avarice, and sly hints 
of aversion to part with it ; sometimes under 
stormy anger, and affectation of boundless rage ; 
but oftener still under a show of thoughtless 
extravagance and gay neglect-— while to a pe- 
netrating eye, none of these wretched veils 
suffice to keep the cruel truth from being seen. 
Poverty is hie et ubique (says he), and if you 
do shut the jade out of the door, she will al- 
ways contrive in some manner to poke her pale 
lean face in at the window." 

I have mentioned before, that old age had 
very little of Mr. Johnson s reverence : " A man 
commonly grew wickeder as he grew older (he 
said), at least he but changed the vices of 
youth ; headstrong passion and wild temerity, 
for treacherous caution, and desire to circum- 
vent. I am always (said he) on the young 
people's side, when there is a dispute between 



198 ANECDOTES OF 

them and the old ones : for you have at least 
a chance for virtue till age has withered its 
very root." While we were talking, my mo- 
ther's spaniel, whom he never loved, stole our 
toast and butter; Fie, Belle! said I, you used 
to be upon honour ; " Yes, madam (replies 
Johnson), but Belle grows old? His reason for 
hating the dog was, " because she was a pro- 
fessed favourite (he said), and because her jady 
ordered her from time to time to be washed 
and combed: a foolish trick (said he) and an 
assumption of superiority that every one's na- 
ture revolts at ; so because one must not wish 
ill to the lady in such cases (continued he), 
one curses the cur." The truth is, Belle was 
not well-behaved, and being a large spaniel, 
was troublesome enough at dinner with fre- 
quent solicitations to be fed. " This animal 
(said Dr. Johnson one day) would have been of 
extraordinary merit and value in the state of 
Lycurgus ; for she condemns one to the exer- 
tion of perpetual vigilance." 

He had indeed that strong aversion felt by 
all the lower ranks of people towards four-footed 
companions very compjetely, notwithstanding 
he had for many years a cat which he called 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 199 

Hodge, that kept always in his room at Fleet- 
street ; but so exact was he not to offend the 
human species by superfluous attention to 
brutes, that when the creature was grown sick 
and old, and could eat nothing but oysters, Mr. 
Johnson always went out himself to buy 
Hodge's dinner, that Francis the Black's deli- 
cacy might not be hurt, at seeing himself em- 
ployed for the convenience of a quadruped. 

No one was indeed so attentive not to offend 
in all such sort of things as Dr. Johnson ; nor 
so careful to maintain the ceremonies of life : 
and though he told Mr. Thrale once, that he 
had never sought to please till past thirty years 
old, considering the matter as hopeless, he had 
been always studious not to make enemies, by 
apparent preference of himself. It happened 
very comically, that the moment this curious con- 
versation passed, of which I was a silent audi- 
tress, was in the coach, in some distant province, 
either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe ; and 
as soon as it was over, Mr. Johnson took out 
of his pocket a little book and read, while a 
gentleman, of no small distinction for his birth 
and elegance, suddenly rode up to the carriage, 
and paying us all his proper compliments, 



200 ANECDOTES OF 

was desirous not to neglect Dr. Johnson ; but 
observing that he did not see him, tapped him 
gently on the shoulder — Tis Mr. Ch — 1m — ley, 
says my husband ; — " Well, sir ! and what if 
it is Mr. Ch — lm — ley !" says the other sternly, 
just lifting his eyes a moment from his book, 
and returning to it again with renewed avidity. 
He had sometimes fits of reading very vio- 
lent ; and when he was in earnest about get- 
ting through some particular pages, for I have 
heard him say he never read but one book, 
which he did not consider as obligatory, 
through in his whole life (and lady Mary 
Wortley's Letters was the book), he would be 
quite lost to company, and withdraw all his 
attention to what he was reading, without the 
smallest knowledge or care about the noise 
made around him. His deafness made such 
conduct less odd and less difficult to him than 
it would have been to another man ; but his 
advising others to take the same method, and 
pull a little book out when they were not en- 
tertained with what was going forward in soci- 
ety, seemed more likely to advance the growth 
of science than of polished manners, for which 
he always pretended extreme veneration. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 201 

Mr. Johnson indeed always measured othei 
people's notions of every thing by his own, and 
nothing could persuade him to believe, that the 
books which he disliked were agreeable to 
thousands, or that air and exercise, which he 
despised, were beneficial to the health of other 
mortals. When poor Smart, so well known 
for his wit and misfortunes, was first obliged 
to be put in private lodgings, a common friend 
of both lamented in tender terms the necessity 
which had torn so pleasing a companion from 
their acquaintance — "A madman must be 
confined, sir," replies Dr. Johnson ; But, says 
the other, I am now apprehensive for his ge- 
neral health, he will lose the benefit of exercise. 
"Exercise! (returns the Doctor,) I never heard 
that he used any : he might, for aught I know, 
walk to the alehouse ; but 1 believe he was al- 
ways carried home again." 

It was however unlucky for those who de- 
lighted to echo Johnson's sentiments, that he 
would not endure from them to-day, what per- 
haps he had yesterday, by his own manner of 
treating the subject, made them fond of re- 
peating ; and I fancy Mr. B has not for- 
gotten, that though hisfriend one evening in a 



202 ANECDOTES OF 

gay humour talked in praise of wine as one of 
the blessings permitted by Heaven, when used 
with moderation, to lighten the load of life, 
and give men strength to endure it: yet, when 
in consequence of such talk he thought fit to 
make a Bacchanalian discourse in its favour, 
Mr. Johnson contradicted him somewhat 
roughly as I remember: and when, to assure 
himself of conquest, he added these words: 
You must allow me, sir, at least that it pro- 
duces truth; in vino Veritas, you know, sir. — 
H That (replied Mr. Johnson) would be useless 
to a man who knew he was not a liar when he 
was sober." 

When one talks of giving and taking the lie 
familiarly, it is impossible to forbear recol- 
lecting the transactions between the editor of 
Ossian and the author of the Journey to the 
Hebrides. It was most observable to me 
however, that Mr. Johnson never bore his an- 
tagonist the slightest degree of ill-will. He 
always kept those quarrels which belonged to 
him as a writer separate from those which he 
had to do with as a man ; but I never did hear 
him say in private one malicious word of a 
public enemy ; and of Mr. Macpherson I once 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 203 

heard him speak respectfully, though his reply 
to the friend who asked him if any man living 
could have written such a book, is well known 
and has been often repeated ; " Yes, sir ; 
many men, many women, and many children." 

I inquired of him myself if this story was au- 
thentic, and he said it was. I made the same 
inquiry concerning his account of the state of 
literature in Scotland, which was repeated up 
and down at one time by every body — " How 
knowledge was divided among the Scots, like 
bread in a besieged town, to every man a 
mouthful, to no man a bellyful." This story 
he likewise acknowledged, and said besides, 
**■ that some officious friend had carried it to 
lord Bute, who only answered — Well, well! 
never mind what he says — he will have the 
pension all one." 

Another famous reply to a Scotsman, who 
commended the beauty and dignity of Glasgow, 
till Mr. Johnson stopped him by observing, 
" that he probably had never yet seen Brent* 
ford," was one of the jokes he owned: and said 
himself, " that when a gentleman of that coun- 
try once mentioned the lovely prospects com- 
mon in his nation, he could not help telling 



204 ANECDOTES OF 

him, that the view of the London road was the 
prospect in which every Scotsman most natu- 
rally and most rationally delighted." 

Mrs. Brooke received an answer not unlike 
this, when expatiating on the accumulation of 
sublime and beautiful objects, which form the 
fine prospect up the river St. Lawrence in 
North America ; " Come, madam (says Dr. 
Johnson), confess that nothing ever equalled 
your pleasure in seeing that sight reversed; 
and finding yourself looking at the happy pros- 
pect down the river St. Lawrence." The 
truth is, he hated to hear about prospects and 
views, and laying out ground, and taste in gar- 
dening : " That was the best garden (he said) 
which produced most roots and fruits ; and 
that water was most to be prized which con^ 
tained most fish." He used to laugh at Shen- 
stone most unmercifully for not caring whether 
there was any thing good to eat in the streams 
he was so fond of, "as if (says Johnson) one 
could fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs, 
or looking at rough cascades !" 

He loved the sight of fine forest- trees, how- 
ever, and detested Brighthelmstone Downs, 
*' because it was a country so truly desolate 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 205 

(he said), that if one had a mind to hang one's 
self for desperation at being obliged to live 
there, it would be difficult to find a tree on 
which to fasten the rope." Walking in a wood 
when it rained, was, I think, the only rural 
image he pleased his fancy with ; " for (says 
he) after one has gathered the apples in an 
orchard, one wishes them well baked, and re- 
moved to a London eating-house for enjoyment." 
With such notions, who can wonder he passed 
his time uncomfortably enough with us, who he 
often complained of for living so much in the 
country ; " feeding the chickens (as he said I 
did) till I starved my own understanding. Get, 
however (said he), a book about gardening, 
and study it hard, since you will pass your life 
with birds and flowers, and learn to raise the 
largest turnips, and to breed the biggest fowls." 
It was vain to assure him that the goodness of 
such dishes did not depend upon their size ; 
he laughed at the people who covered their ca- 
nals with foreign fowls, " when (says he) our 
own geese and ganders are twice as large : if 
we fetched better animals from distant nations, 
there might be some sense in the preference ; 
but to get cows from Alderney, or water-fowl 



206 ANECDOTES OF 

from China, only to see nature degenerating 
round one, is a poor ambition indeed." 

Nor was Mr. Johnson more merciful with 
regard to the amusements people are contented 
to call such : " You hunt in the morning (says 
he), and crowd to the public rooms at night, 
and call it diversion ; when your heart knows 
it is perishing with poverty of pleasures, and 
your wits get blunted for want of some other 
mind to sharpen them upon. There is in this 
world no real delight (excepting those of sensu- 
ality) but exchange of ideas in conversation ; 
and whoever has once experienced the full flow 
of London talk, when he retires to country 
friendships and rural sports, must either be 
contented to turn baby again and play with 
the rattle, or he will pine away like a great 
fish in a little pond, and die for want of his 
usual food." — " Books without the knowledge 
of life are useless (I have heard him say) ; for 
what should books teach but the art of living ? 
To study manners however only in coffee-hou- 
ses, is more than equally imperfect ; the minds 
of men who acquire no solid learning, and only 
exist on the daily forage that they pick up by 
running about, and snatching what drops from 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 207 

their neighbours as ignorant as themselves, 
will never ferment into any knowledge valuable 
or durable ; but like the light wines we drink 
in hot countries, please for the moment though 
incapable of keeping. In the study of man- 
kind much will be found to swim as froth, and 
much must sink as feculence, before the wine 
can have its effect, and become that noblest 
liquor which rejoices the heart, and gives vi- 
gour to the imagination." 

I am well aware that I do not, and cannot, 
give each expression of Dr. Johnson with all 
its force or all its neatness ; but I have done 
my best to record such of his maxims, and re- 
peat such of his sentiments, as may give to 
those who knew him net, a just idea of his cha- 
racter and manner of thinking. To endeavour 
at adorning, or adding, or softening, or melior- 
ating such anecdotes, by any tricks my inex- 
perienced pen could play, would be weakness 
indeed ; worse than the Frenchman who pre- 
sides over the porcelain manufactory at Seve, 
to whom when some Greek vases were given 
him as models, he lamented la tristesse de telles 
formes; and endeavoured to assist them by 
clusters of flowers, while flying Cupids served 



208 ANECDOTES OF 

for the handles of urns originally intended to 
contain the ashes of the dead. The misery is, 
that I can recollect so few anecdotes, and that 
I have recorded no more axioms of a man whose 
every word merited attention, and whose every 
sentiment did honour to human nature. Re- 
mote from affectation as from error or false- 
hood, the comfort a reader has in looking over 
these papers, is the certainty that those were 
really the opinions of Johnson, which are rela- 
ted as such. 

Fear of what others may think, is the great 
cause of affectation ; and he was not likely to 
disguise his notions out of cowardice. He ha- 
ted disguise, and nobody penetrated it so rea- 
dily. I shewed him a letter written to a com- 
mon friend, who was at some loss for the 
explanation of it: "Whoever wrote it (says 
our Doctor) could, if he chose it, make himself 
understood ; but 'tis the letter of an embar- 
rassed man, sir ;" and so the event proved it 
to be. 

Mysteriousness in trifles offended him on 
every side : " it commonly ended in guilt (he 
said) ; for those who begin by concealment of 
innocent things, will soon have something to 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 209 

hide which they dare not bring to light." He 
therefore encouraged an openness of conduct, 
in women particularly, " who (he observed) 
were often led away, when children, by their 
delight and power of surprising." He recom- 
mended, on something like the same principle, 
that when one person meant to serve another, 
he should not go about it slily, or as we say 
underhand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to 
surprise one's friend with an unexpected fa- 
vour ; " which, ten to one (says he), fails to 
oblige your acquaintance, who had some rea- 
sons against such a mode of obligation, which 
you might have known but for that superfluous 
cunning which you think an elegance* Oh ! 
never be seduced by such silly pretences (con- 
tinued he) ; if a wench wants a good gown, do 
not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that 
is more delicate : as I once knew a lady lend 
the key of her library to a poor scribbling de- 
pendant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich 
that could digest iron." He said indeed, "that 
women were very difficult to be taught the pro- 
per manner of conferring pecuniary favours ; 
that they always gave too much money or too 
little ; for that they had an idea of delicacy ac- 



210 ANECDOTES OF 

companying their gifts, so that they generally 
rendered them either useless or ridiculous." 

He did indeed say very contemptuous things 
of our sex ; but was exceedingly angry when 
I told miss Reynolds that he said, " It was well 
managed of some one to leave his affairs in the 
hands of his wife, because, in matters of busi- 
ness (said he), no woman stops at integrity." 
This was, I think, the only sentence I ever 
observed him solicitous to explain away after 
he had uttered it. He was not at all displeased 
at the recollection of a sarcasm thrown on a 
whole profession at once; when a gentleman 
leaving the company, somebody who sat next 
Dr. Johnson asked him, who he was? "I can- 
not exactly tell you, sir (replied he), and I 
would be loath to speak ill of any person who 
I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he 
is an attorney'' He did not however encourage 
general satire, and for the most part professed 
himself to feel directly contrary to Dr. Swift ; 
" who (says he) hates the world, though he 
loves John and Robert, and certain individuals." 

Johnson said always, " that the world was 
well constructed, but that the particular peo- 
ple disgraced the elegance and beauty of the 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 211 

general fabric.'' In the same manner I was 
relating once to him, how Dr. Collier observed* 
that the love one bore to children was from the 
anticipation one's mind made while one con- 
templated them : " We hope (says he) that 
they will some time make wise men, or ami- 
able women ; and we suffer 'em to take up our 
affection beforehand. One cannot love lumps 
of flesh, and little infants are nothing more* 
On the contrary (says Johnson), one can 
scarcely help wishing, while one fondles a 
baby, that it may never live to become a man; 
for it is so probable that when he becomes a 
man, he should be sure to end in a scoundrel." 
Girls were less displeasing to him; "for as 
their temptations were fewer (he said), their 
virtue in this life, and happiness in the next, 
were less improbable ; and he loved (he said) 
to see a knot of little misses dearly." 

Needle-work had a strenuous approver in 
Dr. Johnson, who said, " that one of the great 
felicities of female life, was the general consent 
of the world, that they might amuse themselves 
with petty occupations* which contributed to 
the lengthening their lives, and preserving 
their minds in a state of sanity." A man can- 
p 2 



212 ANECDOTES OF 

not hem a pocket-handkerchief (said a lady of 
quality to him one day) y and so he runs mad, 
and torments his family and friends. The ex- 
pression struck him exceedingly, and when 
one acquaintance grew troublesome, and ano- 
ther unhealthy, he used to quote lady Frances's 
observation, " That a man cannot hem a poc- 
ket-handkerchief . " 

The nice people found no mercy from Mr. 
Johnson ; such I mean as can dine only at 
four o'clock, who cannot bear to be waked at 
an unusual hour, or miss a stated meal without 
inconvenience. He had no such prejudices 
himself, and with difficulty forgave them in 
another. " Delicacy does not surely consist 
(says he) in impossibility to be pleased, and 
that is false dignity indeed which is content to 
depend upon others." 

The saying of the old philosopher, who ob- 
serves, That he who wants least is most like 
the gods, who want nothing ; was a favourite 
sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own 
part required less attendance, sick or well, 
than ever I saw any human creature. Conver- 
sation was all he required to make him happy ; 
and when he would have tea made at two 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 213 

o'clock in the morning, it was only that there 
might be a certainty of detaining his compa- 
nions round him. On that principle it was 
that he preferred winter to summer, when the 
heat of the weather gave people an excuse to 
stroll about, and walk for pleasure in the shade, 
while he wished to sit still on a chair, and chat 
day after day, till somebody proposed a drive 
in the coach ; and that was the most delicious 
moment of his life. " But the carriage must 
stop sometime (as he said), and the people 
would come home at last ;" so his pleasure 
was of short duration. 

I asked him why he doated on a coach so ? 
and received for answer, " That in the first 
place, the company were shut in with him 
there; and could not escape, as out of a room : 
in the next place, he heard all that was said in 
a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf:" 
and very impatient was he at my occasional 
difficulty of hearing. On this account he wish- 
ed to travel all over the world ; for the very 
act of going forward was delightful to him, and 
he gave himself no concern about accidents, 
which he said never happened: nor did the 
xunning-away of the horses on the edge of a 



5214 ANECDOTES OF 

precipice between Vernon and St. Denys in 
France convince him to the contrary ; " for 
nothing came of it (he said), except that Mr. 
Thrale leaped out of the carriage into a chalk- 
pit, and then came up again, looking as white!" 
When the truth was, all their lives were saved 
by the greatest providence ever exerted in fa- 
vour of three human creatures ; and the part 
Mr. Thrale took from desperation was the 
likeliest thing in the world to produce broken 
limbs and death, 

Fear was indeed a sensation to which Mr, 
Johnson was an utter stranger, excepting when 
some sudden apprehensions seized him that he 
was going to die ; and even then he kept all 
his wits about him, to express the most humble 
and pathetic petitions to the Almighty : and 
when the first paralytic stroke took his speech 
from him, he instantly set about composing a 
prayer in Latin, at once to deprecate God's 
mercy, to satisfy himself that his mental powers 
remained unimpaired, and to keep them in ex- 
ercise, that they might not perish by permitted 
stagnation. This was after we parted ; but 
he wrote me an account of it, and I intend \Q 
publish that letter, with many more, 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 215 

When one day he had at my house taken 
tincture of antimony instead of emetic wine, 
for a vomit, he was himself the person to direct 
us what to do for him, and managed with as 
much coolness and deliberation as if he had 
been prescribing for an indifferent person. 
Though on another occasion, when he had la- 
mented in the most piercing terms his approach- 
ing dissolution, and conjured me solemnly to 
tell him what I thought, while sir Richard 
Jebb was perpetually on the road to Streatham, 
and Mr. Johnson seemed to think himself neg- 
lected if the physician left him for an hour 
only, I made him a steady, but as I thought a 
very gentle harangue, in which I confirmed all 
that the doctor had been saying, how no pre- 
sent danger could be expected ; but that his 
age and continued ill health must naturally ac- 
celerate the arrival of that hour which can be 
escaped by none. " And this (says Johnson, 
rising in great anger) is the voice of female 
friendship I suppose, when the hand of the 
hangman would be softer." 

Another day, when he was ill, and exceed- 
ingly low-spirited, and persuaded that death 
was not far distant, I appeared before him in a 



Qi6 anecdotes of 

dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and 
worse apprehensions, made him mistake for an 
iron grey. " Why do you delight (said he) 
thus to thicken the gloom of misery that sur- 
rounds me ? is not here sufficient accumulation 
t)f horror without anticipated mourning ?" This 
is not mourning, sir (said I), drawing the cur- 
tain, that the light might fall upon the silk, 
and shew it was a purple 'mixed with green. 
" Well, well (replied he, changing his voice), 
you little creatures should never wear those 
sort of clothes, however ; they are unsuitable 
in every way. What! have not all insects gay 
colours ?" I relate these instances chiefly to 
shew, that the fears of death itself could not 
suppress his wit, his sagacity, or his temptation 
to sudden resentment. 

Mr. Johnson did not like that his friends 
should bring their manuscripts for him to read, 
and he liked still less to read them when they 
were brought : sometimes, however, when he 
could not refuse he would take the play or 
poem, or whatever it was, and give the people 
his opinion from some one page that he had 
peeped into. A gentleman carried him his 
tragedy, which, because he loved the author^ 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 217 

Johnson took, and it lay about our rooms some 
time. What answer did you give your friend, 
sir ? said I, after the book had been called for. 
" I told him ^replied he), that there was too 
much Tig and Tirry in it," Seeing me laugh 
most violently, "Why what would'st have, 
child ? (said he.) I looked at nothing but the 
dramatis, and there was 7/gTanes and Tzrida- 
tes, or Teribazus, or such stuff. A man can 
tell but what he knows, and I never got any 
farther than the first page. Alas, madam ! ' 
(continued he,) how few books are there of 
which one ever can possibly arrive at the last 
page ! Was there ever yet any thing written 
by mere man that was wished longer by its 
readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson 
Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress ?" After 
Homer's Iliad, Mr. Johnson confessed that the 
work of Cervantes was the greatest in the 
world, speaking of it I mean as a book of en- 
tertainment ; and when we consider that every 
other author's admirers are confined to his 
countrymen, and perhaps to the literary clas- 
ses among them, while Don Quixote is a sort 
of common property, a universal classic, equal- 
ly tasted by the court and the cottage, equally 



218 ANECDOTES OF 

applauded in France and England as in Spain, 
quoted by every servant, the amusement of 
every age from infancy to decrepitude ; the 
first book you see on every shelf, in every shop, 
where books are sold, through all the states of 
Italy ; who can refuse his consent to an avowal 
of the superiority of Cervantes to all other mo- 
dern writers ? Shakspeare himself has, till 
lately, been worshipped only at home, though 
his plays are now the favourite amusements of 
Vienna; and when I was at Padua some months 
ago, Romeo and Juliet was acted there under 
the name of Tragedia Veronese; while engra- 
vers and translators live by the hero of La 
Mancha in every nation, and the sides of mise- 
rable inns all over England and France, and I 
have heard Germany too, are adorned with the 
exploits of Don Quixote. May his celebrity 
procure my pardon for a digression in praise of 
a writer who, through four volumes of the most 
exquisite pleasantry and genuine humour, has 
never been seduced to overstep the limits of 
propriety, has never called in the wretched 
auxiliaries of obscenity or profaneness ; who 
trusts in nature and sentiment alone, and never 
misses of that applause which Voltaire and 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 219 

Sterne labour to produce, while honest merri- 
ment bestows her unfading crown upon Cer- 
vantes. 

Dr. Johnson was a great reader of French 
literature, and delighted exceedingly in Boi- 
leau's works. Moliere I think he had hardly 
sufficient taste of; and he used to condemn me 
for preferring La Bruyere to the Due de Hoche- 
foucault, "who (he said) was the only gentle- 
man writer who wrote like a professed author." 
The asperity of his harsh sentences, each of 
them a sentence of condemnation, used to dis- 
gust me, however ; though it must be owned 
that, among the necessaries of human life, a 
rasp is reckoned pne as well as a razor. 

Mr. Johnson did not like any one who said 
they were happy, or who said any one else 
was so. (f It was all cant (he would cry), the 
dog knows he is miserable all the time," A 
friend whom he loved exceedingly, told him on 
some occasion notwithstanding, that his wife's 
sister was really happy, and called upon the 
lady to confirm his assertion, which she did 
somewhat roundly as we say, and with an accent 
and manner capable of offending Mr. Johnson, 
if lier position had not been sufficient, without 



220 ANECDOTES OF 

any thing more, to put him in a very ill humour. 
** If your sister-in-law is really the contented 
being she professes herself, sir (said he), her 
life gives the lie to every research of humanity ; 
for she is happy without health, without beau- 
ty, without money, and without understand- 
ing." This story he told me himself; and 
when I expressed something of the horror I 
felt, " The same stupidity (said he) which 
prompted her to extol felicity she never felt, 
hindered her from feeling what shocks you on 
repetition. I tell you, the woman is ugly, and 
sickly, and foolish, and poor; and would it 
not make a man hang himself to hear such a 
creature say it was happy ?" 

" The life of a sailor was also a continued 
scene of danger and exertion (he said) ; and 
the manner in which time was spent on ship- 
board would make all who saw a cabin envy a 
gaol." The roughness of the language used on 
board a man of war, where he passed a week 
on a visit to Capt. Knight, disgusted him ter- 
ribly. He asked an officer what some place 
was called, and received for answer, that it 
was where the loplolly-man kept his loplolly : 
a reply he considered, not unjustly, as disre^- 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 221 

spectful, gross, and ignorant ; for though in 
the course of these Memoirs I have been led 
to mention Dr. Johnson's tenderness- towards 
poor people, I do not wish to mislead my rea- 
ders, and make them think he had any delight 
in mean manners or coarse expressions. Even 
dress itself, when it resembled that of the vul- 
gar, offended him exceedingly ; and when he 
had condemned me many times for not adorn- 
ing my children with more show than I thought 
useful or elegant, I presented a little girl to 
him who came o'visiting one evening covered 
with shining ornaments, to see if he would ap- 
prove of the appearance she made. When 
they were gone home, Well sir, said I, how 
did you like little miss ? I hope she was jine 
enough. " It was the finery of a beggar (said 
he), and you knew it was ; she looked like a 
native of Cow-lane dressed up to be carried to 
Bartholomew fair," 

His reprimand to another lady for crossing 
her little child's handkerchief before, and by 
that operation dragging down its head oddly 
and unintentionally, was on the same principle, 
" It is the beggar's fear of cold (said he) that 
prevails over such parents, and so they pull the 



222 ANECDOTES OF 

poor thing's head down, and give it the look of 
a baby that plays about Westminster-bridge, 
while the mother sits shivering in a niche." 

I commended a young lady for her beauty 
and pretty behaviour one day, how T ever, to 
whom I thought no objections could have been 
made. " I saw her (said Dr. Johnson) take a 
pair of scissors in her left hand though ; and 
for all her father is now become a nobleman, 
and as you say excessively rich, I should were 
I a youth of quality ten years hence, hesitate 
between a girl so neglected, and a negro." 

It was indeed astonishing how he could re- 
mark such minutenesses with a sight so mise- 
rably imperfect ; but no accidental position of 
a riband escaped him, so nice was his observa- 
tion, and so rigorous his demands of propriety. 
When I went with him to Litchfield, and came 
down stairs to breakfast at the inn, my dress 
did not please him, and he made me alter 
it entirely before he would stir a step with 
us about the town, saying most satirical things 
concerning the appearance I made in a riding- 
habit ; and adding, " Tis very strange that 
such eyes as yours cannot discern propriety of 
dress : if I had a sight only half as good, 1 
think I should see to the centre." 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 223 

My compliances however were of little worth; 
what really surprised me was the victory he 
gained over a lady little accustomed to con- 
tradiction, who had dressed herself for church 
at Streatham one Sunday morning, in a manner 
he did not approve, and to whom he said such 
sharp and pungent things concerning her hat, 
her gown, &c. that she hastened to change 
them, and returning quite another figure re- 
ceived his applause, and thanked him for his 
reproofs, much to the amazement of her hus- 
band, who could scarely believe his own ears. 

Another lady, whose accomplishments he 
never denied, came to our house one day co- 
vered with diamonds, feathers, &c. and he did 
not seem inclined to chat with her as usual. 
I asked him why ? when the company was 
gone. " Why, her head looked so like that of 
a woman who shews puppets (said he), and her 
voice so confirmed the fancy, that I could not 
bear her to-day ; when she wears a large cap, 
I can talk to her." 

When the ladies wore lace trimmings to their 
clothes, he expressed his contempt of the reign- 
ing fashion in these terms: "A Brussels trim- 
ming is like bread- sauce (said he), it takes 



224 ANECDOTES OF 

away the glow of colour from the gown, and 
gives you nothing instead of it ; but sauce was 
invented to heighten the flavour of our food, 
and trimming is an ornament to the manteau, 
or it is nothing. Learn (said he) that there is 
propriety or impropriety in every thing how 
slight soever, and get at the general principles 
of dress and of behaviour ; if you then trans- 
gress them, you will at least know that they 
are not observed." 

All these exactnesses in a man who was no- 
thing less than exact himself, made him ex- 
tremely impracticable as an inmate, though 
most instructive as a companion, and useful as 
a friend. Mr. Thrale too could sometimes 
overrule his rigidity, by saying coldly, There, 
there, now we have had enough for one lec- 
ture, Dr. Johnson, we will not be upon educa- 
tion any more till after dinner, if you please — 
or some such speech : but when there was no- 
body to restrain his dislikes, it was extremely 
difficult to find any body with whom he could 
converse, without living always on the verge 
of a quarrel, or of something too like a quarrel 
to be pleasing. I came into the room, for ex- 
ample, one evening, where he and a gentleman, 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 225 

whose abilities we all respected exceedingly* 
were sitting; a lady who walked in two mi^ 
nutes before me had blown 'em both into a 

flame* by whispering something to Mr. S- d, 

which he endeavoured to explain away, so as 
not to affront the Doctor, whose suspicions 
were all alive. " And have a care, sir (said he), 
just as I came in ; the old lion will not bear to 
be tickled." The other was pale with rage, the 
lady wept at the confusion she had caused, and 
I could only say with lady Macbeth, 

So ! you've displaced the mirth j broke the good meeting 
With most admir'd disorder. 

Such accidents however occurred too often* 
and I was forced to take advantage of my lost 
lawsuit, and plead inability of purse to remain 
longer in London or its vicinage. I had been 
crossed in my intentions of going abroad* and 
found it convenient* for every reason of health, 
peace, and pecuniary circumstances* to retire 
to Bath, where I knew Mr, Johnson would not 
follow me, and where I could for that reason 
command some little portion of time for my 
own use ; a thing impossible while I remained 
at Streatham or at London* as my hours* car- 

Q 



226 ANECDOTES OF 

riage, and servants, had long been at his com- 
mand, who would not rise in the morning till 
twelve o'clock perhaps, and oblige me to make 
breakfast for him till the bell rung for dinner, 
though much displeased if the toilet was neg-* 
lected, and though much of the time we passed 
together was spent in blaming or deriding, very 
justly, my neglect of economy, and waste of 
that money which might make many families 
happy. The original reason of our connexion, 
his particularly disordered health and spirits, had 
been long at an end, and he had no other ail- 
ments than old age and general infirmity, which 
every professor of medicine was ardently zea- 
lous and generally attentive to palliate, and to 
contribute all in their power for the prolonga- 
tion of a life so valuable. Veneration for his 
virtue, reverence for his talents, delight in his 
conversation, and habitual endurance of a yoke 
my husband first put upon me, and of which 
he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or 
seventeen years, made me go on so long with 
Mr. Johnson ; but the perpetual confinement I 
will own to have been terrifying in the first 
years of our friendship, and irksome in the last; 
nor could I pretend to support it without help, 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 227 

when my coadjutor was no more. To the as- 
sistance we gave him, the shelter our house 
afforded to his uneasy fancies, and to the pains 
we took to soothe or repress them, the world 
perhaps is indebted for the three political pam- 
phlets, the new edition and correction of his 
Dictionary, and for the Poets' Lives, which he 
would scarce have lived, I think, and kept his 
faculties entire, to have written, had not inces- 
sant care been exerted at the time of his first 
coming to be our constant guest in the country ; 
and several times after that, when he found 
himself ( particularly oppressed with diseases 
incident to the most vivid and fervent imagina- 
tions. 1 shall for ever consider it as the great- 
est honour which could be conferred on any 
one, to have been the confidential friend of Dr. 
Johnson's health ; and to have in some mea- 
sure, with Mr. Thrale's assistance, saved from 
distress at least, if not from worse, a mind 
great beyond the comprehension of common 
mortals, and good beyond all hope of imitation 
from perishable beings. 

Many of our friends were earnest that he 
should write the lives of our famous prose au- 
Q 2 



228 ANECDOTES OF 

thors ; but he never made any answer that I 
can recollect to the proposal, excepting when 
sir Richard Musgrave once was singularly 
warm about it, getting up and entreating him 
to set about the work immediately, he coldly 
replied, " Sit down, sir!" 

When Mr. Thrale built the new library at 
Streatham, and hung up over the books the por- 
traits of his favourite friends, that of Dr. John- 
son was last finished, and closed the number. 
It was almost impossible not to make verses 
on such an accidental combination of circum- 
stances, so I made the following ones : but as 
a character written in verse will for the most 
part be found imperfect as a character, I have 
therefore written a prose one, with which I 
mean, not to complete, but to conclude these 
Anecdotes of the best and wisest man that ever 
came within the reach of my personal acquaint- 
ance, and I think I might venture to add, that 
of all or any of my readers : 

Gigantic in knowledge, in virtue, in strength, 

Our company closes with Johnson at length ; 

So the Greeks from the cavern of Polypheme past, 

When wisest, and greatest, Ulysses came last. 

To his comrades contemptuous, we see him look down 

On their wit and their worth with a general frown. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 22Q 

Since from Science' proud tree the rich fruit he receives, 

Who could shake the whole trunk while they turn'd a few leaves. 

His piety pure, his morality nice — 

Protector of virtue, and terror of vice ; 

In these features Religion's firm champion display'd, 

Shall make infidels fear for a modern crusade. 

While th' inflammable temper, the positive tongue, 

Too conscious of right for endurance of wrong, 

We suffer from Johnson, contented to find, 

That some notice we gain from so noble a mind ; 

And pardon our hurts, since so often we've found 

The balm of instruction pour'd into the wound. 

'Tis thus for its virtues the chemists extol 

Pure rectified spirit, sublime alcohol : 

From noxious putrescence, preservative pure, 

A eordial in health, and in sickness a cure ; 

But exposed to the sun, taking fire at his rays, 

Burns bright to the bottom, and ends in a blaze. 

It is usual, I know not why, when a charac- 
ter is given, to begin with a description of the 
person ; that which contained the soul of Mr. 
Johnson deserves to be particularly described. 
His stature was remarkably high, and his limbs 
exceedingly large : his strength was more than 
common I believe, and his activity had been 
greater I have heard than such a form gave one 
reason to expect : his features were strongly 
marked, and his countenance particularly rug- 
ged, though the original complexion had cer- 
tainly been fair; a circumstance somewhat 
unusual : his sight was near, and otherwise 



230 ANECDOTES OF 

imperfect ; yet his eyes, though of a light-gray 
colour, were so wild, so piercing, and at times 
so fierce, that fear was I believe the first emo- 
tion in the hearts of all 'his beholders. His 
mind was so comprehensive, that no language 
but that he used could have expressed its con- 
tents ; and so ponderous was his language, 
that sentiments less lofty and less solid than 
his were, would have been encumbered, not 
adorned by it. 

Mr. Johnson was not intentionally however 
a pompous converser ; and though he was ac- 
cused of using big words, as they are called, 
it was only when little ones would not express 
his meaning as clearly, or when perhaps the 
elevation of the thought would have been dis- 
graced by a dress less superb. He used to 
say, " that the size of a man's understanding 
might always be justly measured by his mirth; " 
and his own was never contemptible. He would 
laugh at a stroke of genuine humour, or sudden 
sally of odd absurdity, as heartily and freely as 
I ever yet saw any man: and though the jest 
was often such as few felt besides himself, yet 
his laugh was irresistible, and was observed im- 
mediately to produce that of the company, not 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 231 

merely from the notion that it was proper to 
laugh when he did, but purely out of want of 
power to forbear it. He was no enemy to 
splendour of apparel or pomp of equipage — 
" Life (he would say) is barren enough surely 
with all her trappings ; let us therefore be cau- 
tious how we strip her." In matters of still 
higher moment he once observed, when speak- 
ing on the subject of sudden innovation, — "He 
who plants a forest may doubtless cut down a 
hedge : yet I could wish methinks that even he 
would wait till he sees his young plants grow." 
With regard to common occurrences, Mr. 
Johnson had, when I first knew him, looked 
on the still-shifting scenes of life till he was 
weary ; for as a mind slow in its own nature, or 
unenlivened by information, will contentedly 
read in the same book for twenty times perhaps, 
the very act of reading it being more than half 
the business, and every period being at every 
reading better understood; while a mind more 
active or more skilful to comprehend its mean- 
ing is made sincerely sick at the second peru- 
sal : so a soul like his, acute to discern the truth, 
vigorous to embrace, and powerful to retain it, 
soon sees enough of the world's dull prospect, 



232 ANECDOTES OP 

which at first, like that of the sea, pleases by 
its extent, but soon, like that too, fatigues from 
its uniformity ; a calm and a storm being the 
only variations that the nature of either will 
admit. 

Of Mr. Johnson's erudition the world has 
been the judge, and we who produce each a 
score of his sayings, as proofs of that wit which 
in him was inexhaustible, resemble travellers 
who, having visited Delhi or Golconda, bring 
home each a handful of oriental pearl to evince 
the riches of the Great Mogul. May the pub- 
lic condescend to accept my illstrung selection 
with patience at least, remembering only that 
they are relics of him who was great on all oc- 
casions, and, like a cube in architecture, you 
beheld him on each side, and his size still ap- 
peared undiminished. 

As his purse was ever open to almsgiving, so 
was his heart tender to those who wanted re- 
lief, and his soul susceptible of gratitude, and 
of every kind impression : yet, though he had 
refined his sensibility, he had not endangered 
his quiet, by encouraging in himself a solicit 
tude about trifles, which he treated with the 
contempt they deserve. 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON". 233 

It was well enough known before these 
sheets were published, that Mr. Johnson had a 
roughness in his manner which subdued the 
saucy, and terrified the meek : this was, when 
I knew him, the prominent part of a character 
which few durstventure to approach so nearly; 
and which was for that reason in many respects 
grossly and frequently mistaken, and it was 
perhaps peculiar to him, that the lofty con- 
sciousness of his own superiority, which ani- 
mated his looks, and raised his voice in 
conversation, cast likewise an impenetrable 
veil over him when he said nothing. His talk 
therefore had commonly the complexion of 
arrogance, his silence of superciliousness. He 
was however seldom inclined to be silent when 
any moral or literary question was started : and 
it was on such occasions, that, like the sage 
in Rasselas, he spoke, and attention watched 
his lips ; he reasoned, and conviction closed 
his periods : if poetry was talked of, his quota- 
tions were the readiest ; and had he not been 
eminent for more solid and brilliant qualities, 
mankind would have united to extol his extra- 
ordinary memory. His manner of repeating 
deserves to be described, though at the same 



234 ANECDOTES OF 

time it defeats all power of description : but 
whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Ho- 
race, would be long before they could endure 
to hear it repeated by another. 

His equity in giving the character of living 
acquaintance ought not undoubtedly to be 
omitted in his own, whence partiality and pre* 
judice were totally excluded, and truth alone 
presided in his tongue : a steadiness of conduct 
the more to be commended, as no man had 
stronger likings or aversions. His veracity 
was indeed, from the most trivial to the most 
solemn occasions, strict even to severity ; he 
scorned to embellish a story with fictitious cir- 
cumstances, which (he used to say) took off 
from its real value. ** A story (says Johnson) 
should be a specimen of life and manners ; but 
if the surrounding circumstances are false, as 
it is no more a representation of reality, it is 
no longer worthy our attention." 

For the rest — That beneficence which, dur- 
ing his life, increased the comforts of so many, 
may after his death be perhaps ungratefully 
forgotten ; but that piety which dictated the 
serious papers in the Rambler, will be for ever 
remembered • for ever, I think, revered. That 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 235 

ample repository of religious truth, moral wis- 
dom, and accurate criticism, breathes indeed 
the genuine emanations of its great author's 
mind, expressed too in a style so natural to 
him, and so much like his common mode of 
conversing, that I was myself but little asto- 
nished when he told me, that he had scarcely 
read over one of those inimitable essays before 
they went to the press. 

I will add one or two peculiarities more, 

before I lay down my pen. Though at an 

immeasurable distance from content in the 
contemplation of his own uncouth form and 
figure, he did not like another man much the 
less for being a coxcomb. I mentioned two 
friends who were particularly fond of looking 
at themselves in a glass — " They do not sur- 
prise me at all by so doing (said Johnson) : they 
see, reflected in that glass, men who have risen 
from almost the lowest situations in life ; one 
to enormous riches, the other to every thing 
this world can give — rank, fame, and fortune. 
They see likewise, men who have merited their 
advancement by the exertion and improvement 
of those talents which God had given them ; 



336 ANECDOTES OF 

and I see not why they should avoid the 
mirror. 

The other singularity I promised to record is 
this: That though a man of obscure birth him- 
self, his partiality to people of family was visi- 
ble on every occasion ; his zeal for subordina- 
tion warm even to bigotry; his hatred to inno- 
vation, and reverence for the old feudal times, 
apparent, whenever any possible manner of 
shewing them occurred. I have spoken of his 
piety, his charity, and his truth, the enlarge- 
ment of his heart, and the delicacy of his sen- 
timents ; and when I search for shadow to my 
portrait, none can I find but what was formed 
by pride, differently modified as different occa- 
sions shewed it; yet never was pride so puri- 
fied as Johnson's at once from meanness and from 
vanity. The mind of this man was indeed ex- 
panded beyond the common limits of human 
nature, and stored with such variety of know- 
ledge, that I used to think it resembled a royal 
pleasure-ground, where every plant, of every 
name and nation, flourished in the full perfection 
of their powers, and where, though lofty woods 
and falling cataracts first caught the eye, and 



DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON". 237 

fixed the earliest attention of beholders, yet 
neither the trim parterre, nor the pleasing 
shrubbery, nor even the antiquated evergreens, 
were denied a place in some fit corner of the 
happy valley. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



Naples, Feb. 10, 1780. 



Since the foregoing went to the press, having seen a passage from 
Mr. Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, in which it is said, that "I could 
not get through Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakspeare," I do not de- 
lay a moment to declare, that, on the contrary, I have always com- 
mended it myself, and heard it commended by every one else j and few 
things would give me more concern than to be thought incapable of 
tasting, or unwilling to testify my opinion of its excellence. 



THE END. 



Printed by T. C. Newby, Angel-Hill, Bury. 



LBo. 



